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Alex Cerda

7-25-2023

Professor Saadi

ENGL 1302

Marijuana use and effects

Marijuana or cannabis use has been a topic of discourse for many decades and is still an

intensely divided argument of the legality of the drug. Since the 19th century marijuana has been

used as a form of medicine to treat patients for a multitude of reasons and is shown to have many

health benefits for people. Cannabis has been linked to help multiple facets of health like

immune, nervous system, and even with mental health. However, marijuana is commonly

referred to as the “Gateway Drug” which makes it more likely that someone will use a stronger

type of drug (Villa-Secades et al.2015). Marijuana is also shown to increase the development of

addiction to other substances like alcohol (Weinberger et al. 2016). The drug has also shown to

have many negative effects to a person that can have long lasting or even permanent effects on

someone. For instance, in a 2016 study by Volkow et al. there was the conclusion that the use of

marijuana can cause an impairment of cognitive function. Marijuana is a multifaceted subject

that has many different opinions from both sides of the argument on why it should or shouldn’t

be illegal.

There are many types of ways in which someone can benefit from marijuana use when

taken for medical or even personal use. There are over 100 known compounds or cannabinoids in

the cannabis plant, and these cannabinoids have shown to have a potential therapeutic effect for

multiple medical conditions. The most common cannabinoids that are used to treat people are
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Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), Cannabidiol (CBD), Cannabigerol (CBG), and

Tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV).

CBD has been shown to be one of the main components in medicinal use for marijuana.

It has shown to help a plethora of different positive effects from reducing inflammation to even

fighting cancers and cancerous cell death. In a study lead by JCI Insight in 2017, it found that

CBD had helped reduce blood pressure, increasing heart rate, and even decreased stroke volume

in the participants. These results were in due to the “high glucose–induced proinflammatory

changes in human coronary artery endothelial cells, and myocardial dysfunction associated with

animal models of diabetes, and it preserves endothelial integrity in diabetic retinal

microvasculature” (Rajesh et al. 2007).  The study took male volunteers and were given 600 mg

of CBD and had their cardiovascular parameters tested with multiple test which were mental

arithmetic, isometric exercise, and a cold pressor test.

There has been studies that show how CBD can be used to help fight the effects of cancer

as well as the effects of chemotherapy as well as other cancer fighting effects.