When we were children and for many of us as young adults we were told about the harmful effects of using Marijuana. For some of us our choices are limited when it comes to the suppression of pain associated with our physical condition or the medications that the traditional medical community has recommended. In recent years the very same entities who have warned us away from ingesting cannabis in any form, agree that there are positive reactions to a great deal of senior afflictions.
The oldest record of medicinal use of marijuana comes from Chinese texts, around 5000 years ago. Its exact origins are still unknown but most experts hypothesize that it originated from somewhere in Central Asia, north of the Himalayan Mountains. The Latin term cannabis had a Greek origin (kannabis) whereas the English word hemp is derived from Middle English hempe and the earlier Old English form henep or haenep. The term marijuana may have arisen from the Portuguese marihuango or the Mexican-Spanish mariguana, both of which mean "intoxicant."
Marijuana is a term that indicates a preparation made from the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant from which the resin has not been extracted. The use of the term cannabis is international, yet its products and the plant itself can be called many different names. The synonyms, excluding the street names, are almost legion and vary from country to country. For example, Central Africans refer to cannabis as mata, kwane, M bhanze, or dagga while Indians commonly refer to it as charas, bhang, ganja, or hashish.
On March 17, 1999, the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) said that smoking marijuana has benefits for the terminally ill. They suggested that studies begin on producing inhalation devices to provide a safe alternative to the harmful effects of smoking.
The study concluded that cannabinoids can be useful in treating pain, nausea and appetite loss caused by advanced cancer and AIDS. D-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) also acts as a sedative and reduces anxiety, which in itself may have therapeutic effects. The results of the studies done by IOM also stated that there was no evidence for marijuana being a "gateway" to harder drugs, or that it is addictive.
Recently it was discovered that THC mimics the lipid molecule anandamide, both of which bind to the same cannabinoid receptors, CB1 and CB2, in the body. Anandamide, an endogenous cannabimimetic eicosanoid, is a member of the a family of fatty acid ethanolamides. Danielle Piomelli (University of California at Irvine) and his colleagues have recently uncovered one of anandamide's endogenous roles. When the nerve terminal releases anandamide, it inhibits other nerve cells that trigger physical action. This inhibition occurs by blocking the action of the brain neurotransmitter dopamine. David W. Self, of the Yale University School of Medicine, says that "these findings promise to propel anandamide from candidate status to bona fide neurotransmitter and may also open the door to novel treatments for diseases that involve dysfunction of dopamine signaling." Studies done on the striatum region of the brain in mice showed that by blocking anandamide release and increasing dopamine release via stimulation make the mice more hyperactive than if anandamide had not been blocked at all. The striatum is densely seeded with both dopamine and anandamide receptors. From these studies, it can be concluded that anandamide acts as a dopamine "brake. There is some evidence that boosting anandamidelike activity by administering THC alleviates symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. More on this topic later.
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Safety Code Sec. 11362.5(B)(1)(A) & 11362.7(H) Prop 215 & S.B 420
