One of weed’s active ingredients, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, interacts with our brain’s reward system, the part that has been primed to respond to things that make us feel good, like eating and sex. When overexcited by drugs, the reward system creates feelings of euphoria. This is also why some studies have suggested that excessive marijuana use can be a problem in some people — the more often you trigger that euphoria, the less you may feel during other rewarding experiences. Within a few minutes of inhaling marijuana, your heart rate can increase by between 20 and 50 beats a minute. This can last anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The new report found insufficient evidence to support or refute the idea that cannabis might increase the overall risk of a heart attack. The same report, however, also found some limited evidence that smoking could be a trigger for a heart attack. Pot also contains cannabidiol, or CBD — and this chemical, while not responsible for getting you high, is thought to be responsible for many of marijuana’s therapeutic effects such as pain relief or potentially treating certain kinds of childhood epilepsy. The new report also found conclusive or substantial evidence — the most definitive levels — that florida medical marijuana doctors and cannabis can be an effective treatment for chronic pain, which could have to do with both CBD and THC. Pain is also “by far the most common” reason people request medical marijuana, according to the report.
One of the ways scientists think it may help with pain is by reducing inflammation, a component of painful illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis. A preliminary 2005 study of 58 patients with RA, roughly half of whom were given a placebo and roughly half of whom were given a cannabis-based medicine called Sativex, found “statistically significant improvements in pain on movement, pain at rest, quality of sleep” for patients on Sativex. Other studies testing both other cannabinoid products and inhaled marijuana have shown similar pain-relieving effects, according to the report. Some people with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis could also benefit from marijuana use, studies suggest. A 2014 paper, for example, describes two studies of people with chronic Crohn’s in which half were given the drug and half were given a placebo. That study showed a decrease in symptoms in 10 of 11 subjects using cannabis, compared with just four of 10 on the placebo. But when the researchers did a follow-up study using low-dose CBD, they saw no effect in the patients.
A drug called Epidiolex, which contains CBD, may be on its way to becoming the first of its kind to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of rare forms of childhood epilepsy. The company that makes it, GW Pharma, is exploring CBD for its potential use in people with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of childhood-onset epilepsy that is associated with multiple types of seizures. In March, the company came out with phase three trial data that showed the drug had some positive results. Researchers say that, for now, we need more research before we’ll know whether cannabis can help with these diseases.
It may throw off your balance, as it influences activity in the cerebellum and basal ganglia, two brain areas that help regulate balance, coordination, reaction time, and posture. Feeling as if time is sped up or slowed down is one of the most commonly reported effects of using marijuana. A 2012 paper sought to draw some more solid conclusions from some of the studies on those anecdotal reports, but it was unable to do so. “Even though 70% of time estimation studies report overestimation, the findings of time production and time reproduction studies remain inconclusive,” the paper said. In a 1998 study that used magnetic resonance imaging to focus on the brains of volunteers on THC, the authors noted that many had altered blood flow to the cerebellum, which most likely fort lauderdale marijuana doctors play a role in our sense of time. Limitations on what sort of marijuana research is allowed make it particularly difficult to study this sort of effect. A case of the munchies is no figment of the imagination — both casual and heavy marijuana users tend to overeat when they smoke. Marijuana may effectively flip a circuit in the brain that is normally responsible for quelling the appetite, triggering us to eat instead, according to a recent study of mice. It all comes down to a special group of cells in the brain that are normally activated after we have eaten a big meal to tell us we’ve had enough. The psychoactive ingredient in weed appears to activate just one component of those appetite-suppressing cells, making us feel hungry rather than satisfied.
Sarasota Marijuana Doctors say that weed can mess with your memory by changing the way your brain processes information, but scientists still aren’t sure exactly how this happens. Still, several studies suggest that weed interferes with short-term memory, and researchers tend to see more of these effects in inexperienced or infrequent users than in heavy, frequent users. Importantly, in most cases, saying cannabis is connected to an increased risk doesn’t mean marijuana use caused that risk.
Scientists can’t say for sure whether florida medical marijuana causes depression or depressed people are simply more likely to smoke. But one study from the Netherlands suggests that smoking weed could raise the risk of depression for young people who already have a special serotonin gene that could make them more vulnerable to depression. Those findings are bolstered by which found moderate evidence that cannabis use was linked to a small increased risk of depression.
The organizers of the Olympics are about to find out just how green the grass is on the other side.
Cannabis industry insiders assert that California state revenue from marijuana legalization will play a major role in funding the Summer Olympics hosted by the city of Los Angeles.
Although the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games will receive a $1.8 billion grant from the International Olympic committee per contract, hosting the Summer Olympics has cost a city an average of $5.2 billion. And of course, it’s a host city’s job to raise the capital to bridge that gap.
The current estimate for florida marijuana doctors the cost of construction in Los Angeles is billions, with the city leaning heavily on its existing sports infrastructure. But the Olympics are notorious for running over budget: The Rio Summer Olympics ended up costing about $1.6 billion more than planners anticipated. The Summer Olympics in Beijing cost a whopping $100 billion.
So how will Los Angeles pay for the modifications required to host thousands of athletes and even more fans? When it was still in the running to host the next summers olympics, the city said they planned to save money through corporate sponsorship deals. But professionals in the marijuana industry have serious cause to think that they’ll be among those footing the bill.
The announcement that Los Angeles would host the Summer Olympics came seven months after California’s vote to legalize recreational florida medical marijuana, where sales are set to begin into effect on Jan. 1, 2018, but will likely be delayed. Estimates place the tax revenue that California will earn from the marijuana industry after the first year of legalization alone at $1 billion.
“The cannabis industry is the fastest-growing in the world. In the U.S. alone it’s projected to be a $23 billion industry. This means that year over year, it’s growing at a compound growth rate of 32 percent, and it’s projected to be larger than the NFL and organic foods. I believe in the next 10 years it’ll be bigger than alcohol.”
Marijuana industry leaders predict that this number will rise steadily over the next 11 years as the business of legal weed expands.
As the cannabis industry morphs from an underground “stoner” culture into a mainstream business, marketing and branding experts say it’s critical that breeders, growers and retail shop owners be alert to how the general public perceives their products. This is particularly important if the industry wants to make marijuana more appealing to a wider audience and get state and federal lawmakers on board.
Marijuana strain names are a good place to focus, experts said.
While longtime cannabis users may think nothing of names like AK-47 or Alaskan Thunder F#*$, such monikers can scare off uninitiated consumers and florida marijuana doctors and patients as well as raise eyebrows among lawmakers. Some strain names turn off people because they are offensive, sound scary or invoke deadly drugs.
Some companies are already taking action. Many growers announced the abandoning of traditional strain names in favor of an “effects-based” classification system using terms like “calm” and “cruise.”
“You shouldn’t need to bio-hack your body through a periodic table of ominous strain names like Trainwreck just to buy some pot.
Many Patient Groups came to a similar conclusion a while back. A California dispensary worked with a grower to come up with an alternative for the strain Green Crack. It’s now called Dream Queen.
“Green Crack is not very medicinal sounding, which is what we’re trying to portray the dispensary’s director of marketing. “Dream Queen, which is well-used throughout the industry, takes the edge off a name like Green Crack. It’s a widely acceptable use of an interchangeable name.”
Patients Group and marijuana doctors in florida also has reassessed other products. It previously sold a hash wafer named Shiva Crystals, which some of its patients took offense to for religious reasons. Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism.
“It was not super offensive, but it had a religious undertone that was offensive. “That was a very high-quality marijuana product, and we had to work with the manufacturer to change the name to be able to carry that top-quality product.”
The dispensary ended up calling the product Hash Wafer.
Understand the Meanings
Strain names typically reference the genetics of the two parent cannabis plants that created the flowers ultimately sold in dispensaries. The word “kush,” for example, is found in a number of strains that are descendants of indica plants originally grown in the Kush mountain range around Afghanistan and India. Chem and Dawg also are qualifiers found in many strains.
While there’s science and history behind what strains are called, many have names that perpetuate the industry’s counterculture. Marketing and branding experts say that could be detrimental to the marijuana industry moving forward.
“If formalized opposition occurs for any kind of legalization, the industry doesn’t want to give that opposition any fuel for a negative advertising campaign. The industry doesn’t want to give its opponents those high-octane names for its strains.