Cannabiniods (weed)

  • Cannabis’s role in society

    • long his of use often medical

    • Historically, marijuana was replaced by more effective drugs in the medical fields and then outlawed

    • Research opened up cannabis use for new med appilcations and legalizations

  • research

    • very very hard to get acesses to research

    • needs a lot of approval from fed gov

    • doesn’t matter if the state it is makes it legal, it is still very heavily montored in studies

    • lots of legal loopholes

    • there are more compunds in plant matter than just a single agonist effecting 1 transmiter

  • Cannabioids as a drug class

    • Major active ingredent: ^9- tetrahyrocannabinol (THC)

    • when smoked, produces a mix of hallucinogentic, depresant, and stimulant effects, known as cannabis intoxication

    • Targets the CB receptors (retro messengers)

    • Most of the effects last 2-6hrs

  • Other forms of THC

    • Delta 8 THC

    • THCA

    • these get converted into THC when heated

    • Synthetic THC

    • Leagal loop holes

  • Cannabidiol

    • No high

    • Potential med benifits

  • Forms

    • Natural forms

      • Produced from varties of hemp plants

      • Hash: Solidified resin of the cannibis plant

      • Marijuana: mix of bud, crushed leaves, and flowering tops

      • Extracts/concentrates: THC extracted and suspended in a medium (vape pen)

      • Edibles/ tinctures: THC is bound to a fat and ethier cooked or applied to skin

      • Potency varies, edibles may be a black box of potency, this matters for user experance, edibles can take 2-4 hours to kick in and may take a long time to wear off (go low on edibles)

    • Synthetic forms

      • “K2” or spice- often sold as incense at gas stations

      • black market versions- quality control is an issue here

      • (NOT SAFE)

  • Medical use of THC

    • pain mangement (CB1/CB2 agonists)

      • transdermal apllication might be esspiaclly effective

      • more work on the CB1 than CB2 receptors

    • Changes to hunger circutry

      • weight loss prevention- eating disorder/cancer

      • nausa control- kemo threapy

    • Movement control

      • Pakingsons- helps with, relives symptoms, helps with circuts in basial ganglia and it changes the firing and helps smooth out movements

      • seizures

    • Glaucoma :)

      • pressure in the eyes

  • CBD and med benifits

    • Anxiety: studies/clinic trials are exploring the common report that CBD can reduce anxiety

    • insomina: studies suggest that

    • chronic pain

    • addiction

  • Cannabis use disorder

    • Influanced by reg use

      • social and occupational lives of 1.6% of people in US are effected, including high # of highschool/college

      • The lifetime risk of reg cannabis users becoming dependent on cannabis is 9%

      • the current varieties of marijuana are 7 times more powerful than those found in 1970’s due to higher THC content (15%)

      • Edibles and concentrates are also highly potent

    • Dangers

      • tolerance and withdrawl sysmptoms

      • occasional panic reactions, automible accdents, and decreased mem while high

      • Long term health prob, reprofuction issues

      • psychosis and mental health issues

    • Tolernace

      • tolernace does build

      • it seems to primarally be a change in the receptor dynamics and availbitlity in the synapse

    • Role in addiction circut

      • Cannabinioids increase dopamine

      • also increase endogenous (natural) opioid relase (so the role opioids in addiction is also part of story here too)

      • Cannabiniods as a retro messenger affect glutamate excitation in the VTA

    • Role in VTA

      • retro messengers reduce firing rate

      • Can sepress excitation

        • if glutamate neurons that excite the VTA are hit they will reduce their excitation

      • Can increase exciation

        • I

    • Impact on necleus accumbens

      • it depends

      • may be why THC has less addcitive tendancys

      • reasleases dopamine randomly, sometimes increases dopamine sometimes inhinits dopamine,

      • depends whats going on in brain when it hits (mental state and neural circutry)

      • wi

  • Withdrawl

    • many of the withdrawl sysmptoms are offten the opp of the effect of drug

      • Insomina

      • aneroxia

      • anxiety

      • irrablitity

      • depresion tremors

    • Does and durration effect severity of withdrawl