Effects of Marijuana Everyone has this question of what marijuana actually is. Usually one would think that everybody knows. But the actual truth, is not many people know what marijuana is. Marijuana is a mixture of leaves, stems, and flowering top's of the Indian plant Cannabis sativia (usually smoked or eaten for its hallucinogenic and pleasure-giving effects). Its chemical ingredients include the "psychoactive THC- known as tetrahydrocannabinol", which is concentrated in the flowering tops, hashish a drug that is prepared from the plant resin which contains eight times more THC than marijuana. Marijuana grows only in certain temperate regions, particularly dry and hot lands. Except for limited medical purposes, marijuana is illegal in almost all, but a few countries. In the United States marijuana is illegal. It is an issue which is greatly debated, used, and abused everyday in our country. In this chapter of our research paper you are going to read about the question-"Does marijuana actually effect the brain?"- In medical terminology there are several cases of brain disorders which can result from causes ranging from physical injury to complex chemical imbalances. In the research papers case, complex chemical imbalances. There are three types of disorders: The first one cerebral injury, is developed by a blow to the head. The person may be stunned, in a daze, or may become unconscious for a moment. This is usually known as a concussion. Fortunately, this does not leave any permanent damage. However, if the blow is severe; hemorrhage and swelling occurs, which results in a tumor that can be removed surgically. The second type of brain disorder is Brain-Stem damage. This occurs in the upper brain stem. If one were to have this, there are several symptoms that can occur. Such as: a loss in appetite, extraordinary thirst with excessive urination, and failure in body temperature-a very low temperature and last but not least uncontrolled anger or aggression. However, if one were to smoke marijuana he usually develops a big appetite, does not develop excessive urination, and his body temperature remains at the regular 98.6 degrees. If any similarly, a marijuana smoker does develop thirst, but so does a runner, regular smoker (coffee and a cigarette for breakfast-go to Dunkin Donuts and visit a couple police officers), an alcoholic and last but not least any hospital patient. Also when one smokes marijuana he develops a sense of laziness, mellowness, and sleepiness (not like alcoholic who acts crazy and hyper). The only time when a marijuana abuser may develop anger or aggression is if he has no money to pay for a joint! The last type of brain disorder is known as a stroke. A stroke historically known as apoplexy, occurs when a major artery in the brain is blocked. This blockage may be caused by blood clot, a compression of a blood vessel, or a rupture of the vessel that is accompanied by bleeding. There has only been five cases of people who developed a blood clot by smoking marijuana. However, three out of the five were also heavy consumers of alcohol. The remaining two were regular marijuana smokers. They developed their tumors after smoking marijuana at least once a day for thirty-one years. If you calculate it out for one individual, it comes out to be 22,630 joints of marijuana. That is a lot of marijuana they both consumed! However, a alcoholic usually develops a tumor within fifteen years. That is half the years the marijuana smokers had. The answer to the question, does marijuana effect the brain? Marijuana does not effect the brain in damage, but it can alter in functions. Marijuana effects the perception of time, distance, and speed. It upsets motor coordination, causing unsteady hands, a change in gait, uncontrolled laughter, and a lag between thought and facial expressions. Sexual functions can also be disturbed. Short-term memory deteriorates. In early stages of the use of marijuana, some users will suffer from nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Most users may find that when they are high the whites of their eyes and facial skin become red, and the pupils dilate and become sensitive to light, increase in appetite, and a dryness in the mouth and throat. What all these effects have in common is that they result from changes in the brain's control centers, located deep in the brain. "Deep brain functions separated from conscious thought processes. The deep relay centers feed information to the controlling mechanisms of the consciousness." So, when marijuana disturbs functions centered in the deep control centers, disorienting changes in the mind occur (I think that is right). The user's psychomotor coordination becomes impaired. One may suffer or develop illusions and hallucinations, have a difficulty in remembering events which just occurred, slowed thinking and a narrow attention span, "depersonalization, euphoria or depression, drowsiness or insomnia, difficulty in making accurate self-evaluation, a loss of judgment, and mental and physical lethargy." In a study in Maryland, hundreds of marijuana addicts from high schools, universities, prisons, and drug programs were studied for six to nine years. The researchers observed thought disorders and identified it as cannibis syndrome. This is known as a decrease in motivation. The marijuana addicts could not recognize the effects in themselves. After giving up the drug for seven to nine weeks they realize they have recovered a sense of motivation. According to another study that was developed by Dr. Heath and several other doctors in 1972, they discovered brain wave patterns being altered in the septal region. This occurs by the THC (drug in marijuana) bundles up or accumulates in and alters fatty structures of cell membranes. The THC accumulates at the fat interface and causes the film of fatty material to be restructured. This leads to a specialized structure of the cell surface. Basically you are remodeling your cell membranes. However, one is not destroying his cell membranes, he is just restructuring them. When you destroy brain cells or cell membranes they can not be replaced. A marijuana smoker does not destroy his cells, he is altering them or damaging them. If the marijuana smoker were to quit smoking, the damaged cells will repair by themselves. If you compare this with alcohol, the drinker destroys his brain cells, leading to less of them. So by smoking marijuana you are probably at better risk. Another sensory experience that deals with the brain is tolerance and dependance. Tolerance is the gradual loss of sensitivity to the effects of a given drug. In this case marijuana. Marijuana users build up tolerance to most of the effects of THC, although at different rates of different effects. The frequent users of marijuana will have fewer alterations in mood, cognition, and physiological function per dose than less experienced users. The regular use of very high doses of marijuana can produce or develop to a mild physical dependence. Psychological dependence can also occur. For example, if a user has major life problems because of marijuana, he will find it hard to give it up. There have been no documented reports of death from a marijuana overdose ( with alcohol there has). Many researchers state that a very large amount would be required to cause death by a overdose. In 3000 B. C, marijuana in Central Asia and China was used as a folk medicine. In the 1400's to the 1800's it was used as energy booster. After consuming cannabis or smoking it one would feel recuperated or full of energy. It was encouraged for slaves and mine- workers. The more they smoked the faster things would be done. Then in the 1900's, it came back to be a pleasure drug. But, when the 1960's-70's came about the use of marijuana became very popular among students. It developed as the second most popular drug. The first was alcohol. Still today marijuana has not been proven to be physically addictive, and no physical withdraw symptoms occur when it is not in use, however a psychological dependence does develop(stated above). Last of all, Medical research has still not found any causes of brain damage occurring by smoking marijuana. Growing up in the metro-politan Detroit area I have seen my friends abuse drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. I feel that marijuana and other drugs should be legal because it would help out our country in many ways. Not just because my friends do it, but just because of the results of other countries doing it. Amsterdam and India have made it legal, and there are no problems dealing with crime or drug activity. In the United States, almost 75% of crime activity is influenced with drugs. I feel by legalizing it, the percentage rate would go down. Sometimes I think I am too young to think of ideas like this. Maybe my reasonings will change as I develop more education on life and school. But as for now, I think they should legalize the use of marijuana.
The brain is the most complicated part of the human body. I will begin explaining certain parts and their functions. In doing this to I hope to give a better understand of our brain while implicating the possibilities of chemical induced complications “The brain with its 15 billion neurons and nerve cells operates using chemical and electrical messages: (Swanson, 1975).1 This is how we perceive our senses. Differences in the way our brain translates these messages can impair perceptions. Hallucinogens prevent the brain from receiving all of these messages in order. All of the information that we receive is through millions of transactions of neurons, like a computer, marijuana alters these transactions .
The term "marijuana" is a word with indistinct origins. Some believe it is derived from the Mexican words for "Mary Jane"; others hold that the name comes from the Portuguese word marigu-ano, which means "intoxicant". The use of marijuana in the 1960's might lead one to surmise that marihuana use spread explosively. The chronicle of its 3,000 year history, however, shows that this "explosion" has been characteristic only of the contemporary scene. The plant has been grown for fiber and as a source of medicine for several thousand years, but until 500~ AD its use as a mind-altering drug was almost solely confined in India. The drug and its uses reached the Middle and Near East during the next several centuries, and then moved across North Africa, appeared in Latin America and the Caribbean, and finally entered the United States in the early decades of this century. Marijuana can even be used as "Biomass" fuel, where the pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be burned as is or processed into charcoal, methanol, methane, or gasoline. This process is call...
It is Christmas Eve, a long time since the passing of Jacob Marley, the business accomplice and just companion of Ebenezer Scrooge. Tightwad is in his numbering house, keeping a savage imposing business model on the coal supply and keeping his representative Bob Cratchit exposed to the harsh elements. Tightwad's nephew, Fred, makes a visit, yet his unending regular cheer exasperates Scrooge, and he says "Hoax!" to Fred's thought that he spend Christmas supper at Fred's home. The following visit is from two men of their word gathering for poor people, yet Scrooge has confidence in keeping the poor in the workhouses and sends them away.
Marijuana (cannabis sativa) is often referred to as pot, tea, grass, weed, hashish, maryjane, ganja, skunk, and there are many, many more depending on how it is used and/or where it is from. It can be sniffed, chewed, smoked, or added to foods or beverages, but most often is smoked by recreational users. Marijuana contains around sixty compounds called cannabanoids. The most psychoactive being delta-9-tetrahydracannabinol (Dudley 18). When marijuana is used, several things can happen to the user both physically and or mentally. Physical effects include: red eyes, dry mouth or throat, increase in heartbeat, tightness of chest (if smoked), drowsiness, unsteadiness, and muscular in-coordination. THC molecules can also distort part of the brains’ information-processing system, altering perception of time, while amplifying sounds and usual images (Dudley 18). This may not seem like something people would want legalized, but there are far more ways to use marijuana for good than for bad.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse marijuana causes the user to feel euphoric by acting on the brain’s reward system. The euphoria is caused by the release of dopamine it to the user system. Other effects can include heightened sensory perception (e.g., brighter colors), laughter, altered perception of time, and increased appetite. Marijuana also inhibits the formation of new memories and causes coordination and balance to be degraded. These reactions are caused by binding the receptors in the cerebellum and base ganglia. The effect is similar to the impairments that are normally associated with consuming alcohol. Habitual users can also develop acute psychosis, a fundamental derangement of the mind (as in schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality especially as evidenced by delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech and behavior (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The IQ level of a marijuana users also decreases over time according to a Duke University study conducted by clinical psychologist Madeline Meier “people who bega...
Marijuana has an immediate effect during and for about 2 hours after smoking. With alcohol, users feel slight effects after just one drink, and recover depending on the amount the person drank, how much they weigh, and how much they had to eat before ingesting the alcohol. Immediate effects of use are slurred speech, decreased inhibitions, poor judgment, and lack of motor coordination. Marijuana causes red eyes, dry mouth, increased appetite, slowed reaction, paranoia, hallucinations, decreased social inhibitions, and memory loss. Drinking heavy amounts of alcohol can lead to a coma or even death. A person would have to smoke 40,000 times the amount to get high to overdose, so it is practically impossible. Alcohol is responsible for over 100,000 deaths per year. Marijuana kills less than 10,000 per year.
As I attempt to present the psychological effects of marijuana, we must first consider the concept of being psychologically dependant. When you are dependant upon something, you are not necessarily unable to do without it. Rather, you begin to rely on it. That is not to say that dependency is not addiction because I do believe dependency is a form of addiction. However, marijuana does not cause the same physical withdrawal symptoms as with drugs that are considered addictive. Drugs, such as crack and heroine require extreme measures to break the body's dependency or addiction. This is the conventional understanding of what constitutes an addiction to a drug. Given the information that marijuana use lacks the ability for the body to develop a physical addiction in the vast majority of individuals, the concept of psychological addiction (dependency) becomes clearer.
Swisher, Clarice, Ed. “Charles Dickens: A Biography.” Readings on Charles Dickens. San Diego, Greenhaven Press, 1998. Print. 21 March 2014.
Scrooge wakes up after his encounter with the Ghost of Christmas Future, and his attitude has changed very much to when he was cruel and angry at the world in the beginning. Now he is kind, friendly, and happy. He calls to a boy on the street and asked him what day it is. The boy answers that it is Christmas Day, and Scrooge talks to himself and thinks the Ghost’s did it all in one night. Scrooge shouts down to the boy once more and says to him do you know where the butcher shop is? When the boy answers yes, Scrooge than asks the boy if a large turkey is still there, and when the boy answers yes, Scrooge tells the boy to go go get it, and bring the butcher to Scrooge’s house. He then said he would pay the boy a shilling for doing it, half-crown
The Effects of Marijuana Marijuana is a mood altering or psychoactive drug that has many nicknames, such as pot, weed, ganja, sensi, herb, and. others. The. It is an ancient drug that dates back to hundreds of years to the Asia. Many cultures have used it during meditation, religious.
When getting high becomes more frequent, the effects become more serious. The brain, or control center, is greatly affected by marijuana. The average person may not know the brain does not fully develop until their mid-twenties. Hence, why most states set the legal drinking age to twenty-one years old. States also contemplate on the legalization of marijuana because drug use can harm the brain at any age, but teenagers and children are more susceptible to long term damage due to incomplete brain development. One way that marijuana affects the brain includes THC stimulating the brain cells which create the high state of mind. The stimulation can cause hallucinations, paranoia, uncoordination, and impairment. The ability to remember and judgement
A common misconception is that weed kills brain cells. This is based on a study done in Dunedin,New Zealand, by Dr. Malik Burnett, based on 1000 chronic abusers of marijuana
People who suffer from a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have experienced a distressing event that has caused them to have a panicked state and seem to relive the event while also experiencing physical symptoms. PTSD patients are usually prescribed medicine but this does not account for each aspect of the PTSD, allowing them to feel side effects and sometimes not feeling much relief of the disorder. Marijuana can be used to aid these patients with nightmares, physical symptoms like nausea, and allow for the decreased risk of addiction compared to prescribed medications (Spiegel, 2013). People who experience anxiety and depression can be benefitted by Marijuana. When one with these disorders are prescribed medication it may not react fast enough for the body to react. On the contrary with marijuana, there is an instant response and relief to pain. Marijuana is also known to keep the mind transparent and free of consistent worries. Anxiety and depression related disorders such as anorexia or bulimia can also be treated with the use of marijuana allowing the increase of appetite and symptom relief of nausea (Spiegel, 2013). Addiction is one of the largest problems in America there are thousands that die from overdose each year. As we all know people can not overdose on marijuana allowing it to be a safer option than other drugs. Researchers found
When THC enters the brain it targets brain cells called cannabinoid receptors, which is found in parts of the brain that influence pleasure, memory, thinking, concentration, and time perception; marijuana over activates this causing the user to have trouble with these actions.
There are many things inside marijuana that can harm the body, mind, and mostly the lungs. It’s a fact that marijuana effects short-term memory. Someone how abuses weed will also cause some long-term effects and it will be permanent. These long terms hazards of marijuana use include chronic cough, mucus, nasal congestion, a lack of motivation, and a decrease in sexual desires. MRI tests show patients given Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have reduced functions in the inferior frontal cortex brain region. The inferior frontal cortex is associated with controlling inappropriate behavioral responses to situation. Some of marijuana’s main effects include...