All about marijuana

What exactly is marijuana and is it really dangerous?

Marijuana is the most common illegal drug around and you may have already seen it, smelled it, or you may have even tried it yourself. It comes from a plant called "cannabis" which grows all over the world, including Canada, and some people call it pot, weed, grass, hash, smoke or ganja - just to name a few. Although hash and hash oil also come from cannabis, they tend to be much more potent than their leafy counterpart. Marijuana is green or brownish and comes from the flowers on the cannabis plant. The flowers are dried and usually rolled in a joint (like a cigarette) and then smoked. Some people smoke marijuana in pipes, bongs and others eat it.

Why do people want to get high?

It's a good question and there may be several reasons. Some say it's an "escape", or a way to forget about problems for a while - but you know what? Once the "high" goes away, or once you "come down', the problems are still there.

Some smoke pot because they think it's fun. Sure, it might help make you laugh or make you think you're funnier than you really are, but it just seems this way because the marijuana physically changes the way you think and respond to other people, as well as the way you react to things that happen. People who are high often laugh at things that non-high people wouldn't find funny at all.

What's it like to be high?

That all depends on a bunch of factors, like the type and strength of marijuana, your mood, whether you've ever tried it before, the place where you do it, who you're with, what you had for dinner, whether you've taken any other drugs (illegal or not), and so on. It affects everyone differently so even though there's no way of saying for sure how it will affect you personally and there's no way to know where any particular stash came from, these are some fairly common effects:

• Some feel nothing - except for a sore throat (assuming they smoked it).
• Some feel relaxed.
• Most get thirsty and hungry (you've heard of the "munchies", right?).
• Some get giggly for no reason at all.
• Some feel paranoid or anxious.
• Many people notice that their heart races and their thinking gets distorted.
• Some people become forgetful, even of things that just happened (short-term memory loss).
• Most people on marijuana see, smell and hear things differently than they normally do - and this is the main reason why some activities may be dangerous when you're high, like playing sports, riding your bike or worse, driving a car.
• Most get bloodshot eyes.
• Some people even "freak out", or start acting totally crazy, but this usually happens when they mix marijuana with alcohol or other drugs.
• Some go into a sort of trance and can't seem to do anything but wait it out.
• Most get extremely tired once they "come down" (when the high wears off).

How does marijuana actually work? Why does it make you high?

This topic can be a bit complicated, with lots of detail about how the active ingredients of marijuana affect the inner-workings of the brain. For those of you interested in the hard-core scientific talk, you can read up on it here: McGill U. brain content. For everyone else, let's just say that cannabis has what are called psychoactive chemicals, the main one being "tetrahydrocannabinol" or THC for short. When you smoke a joint, the THC goes into your lungs, then into your heart which pumps it into your bloodstream which then takes it directly to your brain. When you smoke marijuana, it only takes a few minutes for the THC to get to your brain, whereas if you eat it, it would take a little longer because it has to pass through your digestive system first. Once it's in your brain, the THC activates what are called "receptors", and gives you the feeling of being high. In short, marijuana changes the physical and chemical balance in your brain and this is what people refer to as a "high".

So, is marijuana dangerous?

There are risks to marijuana use, both over the long and short term.

In the short term, the effects that marijuana will have on any one person may be different each time they try it, depending on the amount they take, the potency of the drug, the person's mood at the time and the place in which it is used. The truth is that you can never be 100 percent sure of the effects, or how long they will last.

Sometimes people become withdrawn, fearful, anxious or depressed and this tends to happen if the person takes more than they usually do, if the strength of the marijuana is more than what they are used to, or if they are an inexperienced user. And look out if you're using marijuana with other substances.

If eaten, the "psychoactive" effects of marijuana become much more difficult to control. Because the effects of marijuana take longer to sink in when eaten, people often become impatient and think that nothing is happening - so they eat more - but a couple of hours later, when it finally hits them, they could be in trouble.

The use of marijuana with alcohol is far more dangerous than the two used separately. The intoxicating effects of both drugs used at the same time increase impairment. In this case 1 + 1 does not equal 2, but more like 3 or 4.

On the other hand, you should consider the long term effects. Smoking marijuana, whether in a joint or in a bong, releases tar into the lungs in the same way that smoking tobacco does. There are more than 400 chemicals in marijuana smoke, some of which can affect the lungs, throat and esophagus. Daily or regular use of marijuana may cause respiratory problems such as chronic cough, and chronic or recurring bronchitis.

Marijuana can lower inhibitions and impair judgment. Lowered inhibitions have been known to result in unprotected sex, increased possibilities of sexually transmitted diseases, and potential unwanted pregnancies. Marijuana may interfere with human reproduction. Some research shows a decline in sex hormones in young boys and possible disturbances of the menstrual cycle in girls. In the critical early stages of pregnancy, smoking may be harmful to the baby.