Cannabis, what it is, how it works, disease and medical use.
Introduction
One of the most important problem of our age it’s for sure the one’s of drug’s consume.
A lot of people start to use different kind of drugs in the age of 15-16 years old, continuing for many years and going on through a lot of different drugs heavier without knowing why it is so dangerous for our body and also without knowing what kind of drug they are taking.
We can divide drugs in soft drug like Marijuana that give psychic alterations and transitional personality, that will not cause a totally addicted behavior to its, or hard drug like heroin, cocaine, crack, ecstasy and many others, that induce significant alterations and psychophysical phenomena of abituations.
A drug, psychoactive, psychotropic it’s a chemical pharmacologically active, with psychotropic action, capable of altering the mental activity, able to induce in different degree, phenomena of dependence, tolerance or addiction.
Different drugs have generally complex effect and the psychotropic action can be classified as:
* Psycholettic : induce mental depression (es. Opioids, barbiturates and etanol.)
* Psychoanalettic :induce mental excitement (es. Caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines.)
* Psychodislexic : able to alter the perception, state of mind or the behavior.
(es. Cannabinoids, hallucinogens (lsd, mecalin, dmt) or dissociative (ketamine, pcp)
Psychoactive drug
Which is the more used drug?
Marijuana is the most used drug in the world, just followed from cocaine.
The anti drugs department (DPA) announced in the 2014 that in the last 11 years people older than 25 years old consumed less drugs than before, but young people between 15 and 20 years old increased their drug addiction.
Marijuana is a soft drug an this is the reason why most of people think it is not dangerous for brain and body.
Marijuana is one of the few drugs that are also used in medicine as a pharmaceutical.
One of the most common problem is that often who consume Marijuana used to drink and smoke sigarette too in the same time.
Let’s consider this drug in a deeper way and study which are his effects.
Anti Drug Department,
Marijuana
Marijuana is a psychoactive substance that is obtained from the dried flowers of Cannabis plant, who beloved at the genotype THCAS.
Cannabis plants are dioecious, that means we have a plant with two different sex, the male part is only used for the reproduction instead of being utilized as the female part.
Maijuana contains delta-9-tetraidrocannabinol (THC, delta-9-THC o tetraidrocannabinol), founder of the family of phitocannabinoids.
Despite its cultivation as a source of food, fibre and medicine, and its global status as the most used illicit drug, the genus Cannabis has an inconclusive taxonomic organization and evolutionary history.
Drug types of Cannabis (marijuana), which contain high amounts of the psychoactive cannabinoid Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), are used for medical purposes and as a recreational drug.
Hemp types are grown for the production of seed and fibre, and contain low amounts of THC.
Two species or gene pools (C. sativa and C. indica) are widely used in describing the pedigree or appearance of cultivated Cannabis plants.
Using 14,031 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped in 81 marijuana and 43 hemp samples, we show that marijuana and hemp are significantly differentiated at a genome-wide level, demonstrating that the distinction between these populations is not limited to genes underlying THC production.
The Genetic Structure of Marijuana and Hemp. 2015
Thc [C21H30O2]
Thc it’s a psychotropic substance that can be smoked, ate or vaporized and has a lot of effect on the human body, as it’s euphoric, anti-nausea, anti-emetic, stimulator of appetite, lowers intraocular pressure, capable of lowering aggression, that’s why it is utilized also in medicine and it is used also in treatment of a lot of different pathologies.
It was isolated from Raphael Mechoulam, Yechiel Gaoni and Habib Edery in the institute Weizmann in Israel in the 1964.
In the pure form or with a cold temperature it is vitreous and brown, it turn in viscous and sticky with hotter temperature.
Thc stimulates the release of dopamine from the nucleus accumbens, the person may cause the symptoms of euphoria, relaxation, altered perception of space and time, altered auditory, olfactory and visual, anxiety, disorientation, fatigue and appetite stimulation.
Cannabis biosintesis
In cannabis Thc carboxylic acid occurs mainly as a tetrahidrocannabinol (THC-COOH). The condensing enzyme of geranil pyrophosphate and acid olivetolico generates tetrahidrocannabivarin, which is cyclized by the enzyme Thc acid synthase to give thc-cooh. The heat decarboxilates acid in Thc.
The main modification is the oxidation of cicloexan, which transform the thc in cannabidiol (cbd).
The cannabidiol acid undergo decarboxylation upon heating and that’s why when the cannabis is smoked the levels of active cannabinoids increase, for example the acid tetrahidrocannabinoln is converted is tetrahidrocannabinol.
How it works for make this effect?
The binding of cannabinoid at CB1 receptors due to a presynaptic inhibition of the release of various neurotransmitter (in particular dopamine and glutamate), and stimulation of the areas of periacqueductal grey PAG and the rostral ventromedial medulla RVM, which in turn inhibit ascending pathways of pain.
At the level of the spinal cord, the binding of cannabinoid to the CB1 receptors causes inhibition of afferent fibers at the level of the dorsal horn.
Peripheral level the binding of cannabinoid with CB1 and CB2 receptors
Cause the reduction of the secretion of various prostanoids and proinflammatory cytokines, the inhibition of substance P and therefor of the painful signal.
The mechanism of the appetite stimulation is believed to be the results of activity of the axis hipotalamic-gastrointestinal. The activity of CB1 in the hunger center of the hipotalamus increase the palatability of food when levels of the hormone ghreline increases.
THC structure and Mechanism
Medical use
As we said Marijuana can be used also in medicine to treat a lot of different patology.
Let’s see an example : Marijuana use in Epilepsy
Marijuana has been utilized as a medicinal plant to treat a variety of conditions for nearly five millennia. Over the past few years, there has been an unprecedented interest in using cannabis extracts to treat epilepsy, spurred on by a few refractory pediatric cases featured in the media that had an almost miraculous response to cannabidiol-enriched marijuana extracts.
This review attempts to answer the most important questions a clinician may have regarding the use of marijuana in epilepsy.
First, we review the preclinical and human evidences for the anticonvulsant properties of the different cannabinoids, mainly tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD).
Cannabis has been used for centuries by humans for recreational and medicinal purposes, however, there is substantial evidence that cannabis use can expose people to varying complications (e.g., risk of addiction, cognitive impairment), thus, it is important to determine the benefit/risk of cannabis with precision and to implement policy measures based on evidence to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm.
Novel cannabinoid drugs are emerging for medicinal use (e.g., dronabinol, nabiximols) and as illicit drugs perpetuating the perception that cannabinoid drugs can be a friend or foe.
This special issue will cover these various aspects of cannabinoid pharmacology and therapeutics ranging from basic chemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and clinical trial results, to policy and education efforts in this area.
Marijuana and Epilepsy
