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Marijuana use is also linked to other substance use disorders including nicotine addiction." [309] It also reported that "These findings are consistent with the idea of marijuana as a "gateway drug". However, the majority of people who use marijuana do not go on to use other, "harder" substances.
A dried cannabis flower. The short-term effects of cannabis are caused by many chemical compounds in the cannabis plant, including 113 [clarification needed] different cannabinoids, such as tetrahydrocannabinol, and 120 terpenes, [1] which allow its drug to have various psychological and physiological effects on the human body.
Psychoactive drugs operate by temporarily affecting a person's neurochemistry, which in turn causes changes in a person's mood, cognition, perception and behavior. There are many ways in which psychoactive drugs can affect the brain. Each drug has a specific action on one or more neurotransmitter or neuroreceptor in the brain.
Δ-8-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-8-THC, [a] Δ 8-THC) is a psychoactive cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant. [1] It is an isomer of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC, Δ 9-THC), the compound commonly known as THC, with which it co-occurs in hemp; natural quantities of ∆ 8-THC found in hemp are low.
The CBD drug Epidiolex has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of two rare and severe forms of epilepsy, [59] Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndromes. [ 60 ] Nabilone (Cesamet) is an FDA approved synthetic analog of THC, prescribed for the treatment of nausea and vomiting induced by chemotherapy treatment in people who ...
Cannabis also has a long history of being used for medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug known by several slang terms, such as marijuana, pot or weed. Various cannabis strains have been bred, often selectively to produce high or low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a cannabinoid and the plant's principal psychoactive constituent .
Although the main psychoactive constituent of Cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant is known to contain more than 500 compounds, among them at least 113 cannabinoids; however, most of these "minor" cannabinoids are only produced in trace amounts. [10]
Over time, the marijuana gateway hypothesis has been studied more and more. In one published study, the use of marijuana was shown not a reliable gateway cause of illicit drug use. [68] However, social factors and environment influence drug use and abuse, making the gateway effects of cannabis different for those in differing social circumstances.