25 Odd Facts About Marijuana

By Stephanie Pappas, Reside Science Contributor | November 22, 2016 04:05pm ET

• 

  Credit score: mikeledray/Shutterstock.com

  Going mainstream

  Marijuana, essentially the most generally used unlawful drug in America, goes mainstream. It is now authorized to make use of marijuana recreationally in eight states — Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington — and the District of Columbia. Pot appears poised for wider use, too: There are 21 states that now permit the possession and use of marijuana for medicinal functions, in response to the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse.

  However simply how a lot have you learnt concerning the wacky weed and its odd results? How precisely does marijuana present its excessive, and who found the results of smoking the plant within the first place? Learn on for a few of the stranger information about hashish consumption.

• 

  Legendary origins

  The hippie era didn't uncover pot. However the drug's true origins stay a bit murky.

  For instance, one supply, the Drug Enforcement Administration Museum in Arlington, Virginia, states that the oldest written references to hashish date again to 2727 B.C., when the Chinese language Emperor Shen Nung supposedly found the substance and used it medicinally.

  However there's one drawback with this putative truth: Shen Nung, if he existed, was not the emperor of China. The primary emperor of a unified China was Qin Shi Huang, who was born round 260 B.C. — considerably later than the supposed Shen Nung. Neither is it solely clear the place or how this Shen Nung recorded his medicinal marijuana experiments. The earliest examples of written Chinese language characters date to the Shang dynasty, between 1200 B.C. and 1050 B.C., when oracles carved symbols on bones and turtle shells. Although the story of Shen Nung permeates pot histories on-line, his existence appears to be extra marijuana fantasy than truth.

  Nonetheless, the Chinese language deserve some credit score. The traditional Taiwanese have been utilizing hemp fibers to brighten pottery about 10,000 years in the past, in response to "The Archaeology of Historic China" (Yale College Press, 1968).

  However the identification of the primary particular person to find pot's intoxicating results is misplaced to prehistory.

• 

  Credit score: Picture through Shutterstock

  Bizarre methods to make use of hemp

  The marijuana plant is not used just for smoking; its fibers can be made into rope or cloth. Maybe the oddest use of hemp rope on report is as a way for transporting big stone statues. In 2012, archaeologists created reproductions of Easter Island's statues, attempting to determine how historical individuals could have moved the long-lasting 9,600-lb. (four.35 metric tons) heads from their quarry. Theorists have steered the whole lot from log rollers to extraterrestrial assist for the duty, however in 2012, California State College Lengthy Seashore archaeologist Carl Lipo proved that each one that was wanted is hemp rope.

  By attaching three hemp ropes to the statue and having a crew of 18 individuals rock it forwards and backwards till it "walked," Lipo and his crew have been in a position to transfer the hunk of stone 328 toes (100 meters) in lower than an hour, they reported within the Journal of Archaeological Science. Easter Islanders would have had woody shrubs much like marijuana crops to make use of in making rope, the researchers argued. 

• 

  Credit score: zhangyang13576997233/Shutterstock.com

  Hemp versus pot

  What is the distinction between hemp and pot, anyway? A single genetic swap. In 2011, researchers from the College of Saskatchewan introduced that they'd found the genetic alteration that permits psychoactive hashish crops (Hashish sativa) to offer customers a excessive (as in comparison with industrial hemp crops, which are not any enjoyable for smoking).

  Industrial hemp crops are the identical species as marijuana crops, however they do not produce a substance known as tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA). That is the precursor to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in pot. Hemp crops fail to provide this substance as a result of they lack a gene that makes an enzyme to provide THCA, in response to College of Saskatchewan biochemist Jon Web page.

  In distinction, marijuana crops do produce THCA however do not create a lot of a substance known as cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), which happens in abundance in hemp however competes with THCA for uncooked supplies. Thus, hemp is wealthy in nonpsychoactive CBDA, whereas marijuana is chock stuffed with mind-bending THC.

• 

  Credit score: Stanimir G.Stoev/Shutterstock

  Gender-bender

  Smoking up may very well be a really totally different expertise for women and men, in response to a 2014 research within the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. In analysis on rats, Washington State College psychologist Rebecca Craft discovered that females have been extra delicate to hashish' painkilling qualities, however they have been additionally extra prone to develop a tolerance for the drug, which might contribute to unfavourable unwanted effects and dependence on marijuana.

  The feminine rats' larger ranges of the hormone estrogen appear to play a task in these sex-specific results. Feminine rats are extra delicate to the results of hashish at ovulation, when estrogen ranges are highest, Craft mentioned in a press release.

• 

  Credit score: Soloviova Liudmyla/Shutterstock.com

  Pot to your pets?

  Folks have used medicinal marijuana to ease the whole lot from glaucoma to the unwanted effects of chemotherapy. So why should not man's greatest good friend give medicinal pot a shot?

  Pet house owners are already utilizing marijuana medicinally to assist their struggling cats and canines, in response to a 2013 article within the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Affiliation. More often than not, animals that ingest pot recover from the results inside a number of hours, veterinarians say. However in massive portions, pot might be lethal to animals.

• 

  Credit score: igor.stevanovic/Shutterstock.com

  Does your coronary heart hate pot?

  Many of the debate concerning the well being results of marijuana facilities on the mind modifications that will include utilizing the drug, such because the drug's affiliation with an elevated danger of creating schizophrenia and different psychotic issues. However might smoking a bowl mess together with your coronary heart, too?

  In an April 2014 research, researchers combed via 2,000 instances of medical issues from marijuana in France and located that 2 p.c concerned coronary heart issues, together with 9 deadly coronary heart assaults. The research wasn't designed to find out why pot use would possibly often result in coronary heart issues, however earlier analysis has discovered that marijuana can improve coronary heart charge and blood stress, which might tip a weak particular person over into coronary heart assault territory.

  "The notion is that marijuana is a magical drug, that it's very protected, and we are able to use it in medical remedy. What we do not learn about are the unfavourable results, the potential harms," Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a heart specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York who was not concerned within the research, instructed Reside Science on the time.

• 

  Credit score: Peter Kim/Shutterstock.com

  Naming traditions

  A wine lover would possibly select between a pinot noir, a sangiovese and a viognier to go together with dinner. A pot connoisseur, then again, might select between strains with names like "purple haze," "chocolope" and "inexperienced crack."

  Weird names are a time-honored custom amongst pot growers, going again not less than to the 1970s, when strains similar to "Maui Waui" (from Hawaii, naturally) got here onto the scene. Why such goofy names? Effectively, one motive is likely to be the method behind the naming choices.

  "So many occasions, we have lastly received to the tip of a pressure, and we've got it proper there and it is completed, and we're like, 'What will we name it?'" one of many co-owners of Amsterdam's DNA Genetics, a hashish seed financial institution, instructed the LA Occasions in July 2014. "And we sit there, and we name all our buddies and smoke. That is a brainstorm session."

• 

  Credit score: Iakov Kalinin/Shutterstock.com

  It is within the air

  There are particular locations the place a haze of pot smoke is to be anticipated: Grateful Lifeless live shows, for instance, or marijuana legalization rallies. However on the streets of Rome?

  Sure, in response to a 2012 research completed in Italy, hint quantities of marijuana are wafting via the air across the Colosseum and the Pantheon, in addition to in seven different Italian cities. Researchers examined the air of Rome, Bologna, Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin and Verona for psychotropic substances, together with cocaine, marijuana, nicotine and caffeine. The scientists discovered all of those substances in all eight cities, with Turin having the best whole concentrations and Florence and Bologna having the best concentrations of pot.

  However even in Florence and Bologna, vacationers needn't fear a few contact excessive whereas taking within the sights. The degrees of marijuana and different substances have been far too low to have an effect on human well being — however researchers mentioned they hope the findings can inform drug coverage by serving to to estimate drug consumption in every metropolis.

• 

  Credit score: maxriesgo/Shutterstock.com

  Child cleaning soap oops

  In an uncommon case, a hospital in North Carolina seen an uptick within the variety of newborns who have been testing optimistic for marijuana of their urine, a discovering that may counsel that mother has been smoking and may result in social providers getting concerned. However it seems that these infants weren't affected by pot publicity. They have been simply soapy.

  An investigation of the optimistic checks discovered that substances in a number of widespread child soaps could cause a false optimistic on marijuana urine checks, researchers reported in 2012. The soaps, together with formulation from Johnson & Johnson, CVS and Aveeno, do not include pot, nor do the get infants excessive. A extra delicate check can present that the preliminary screening outcomes have been false positives, researchers reported within the journal Scientific Biochemistry.

• 

  Credit score: Stable Internet Designs LTD/Shutterstock.com

  Pot is not essentially inexperienced

  This is a bummer for the eco-conscious: Pot is not all that "inexperienced." The power wanted to provide 2.2 kilos (1 kilogram) of marijuana indoors is equal to that wanted to drive throughout the nation 5 occasions in a automotive that will get 44 miles to the gallon, in response to a 2011 report by a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory. All these develop lights suck up a variety of electrical energy.

  Rising crops open air might reduce marijuana's carbon footprint, however year-round demand for the drug implies that industrial growers maintain their crops in warehouses and greenhouses. Improvements similar to greenhouses outfitted with low-energy LED lights might assist make pot greener, however like several large-scale agriculture, marijuana rising would require large-scale power.

• 

  Credit score: USFWS File

  Pot versus owls?

  Outside develop operations have their downsides, too — notably unlawful plots of pot crops. Endangered noticed owls in California's Mendocino County are threatened by the rat poison put out by individuals who develop pot illegally on remoted stretches of public land. In 2012, two noticed owls discovered useless in Mendocino County examined optimistic for rat poison, as did the our bodies of 85 p.c of useless mammals known as fishers.

  The individuals who harvest unlawful pot can discover themselves with well being issues, too. In June 2013, hospital employees in Albania reported a cluster of marijuana-related sicknesses, with greater than 700 sufferers handled at one village. Employees close to the village of Lazarat who had extended pores and skin contact with hashish crops throughout harvesting and packing developed signs similar to vomiting, abdomen ache and irregular heartbeats, in response to Reuters. Half of Albania's marijuana is grown illegally within the area. 

• 

  Credit score: Jan Havlicek/Shutterstock.com

  Pot is getting stronger

  Marijuana's excessive is getting more and more larger. In 2016, researchers measured the degrees of marijuana's lively ingredient, THC, in additional than 38,600 samples of road marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Company over 20 years. They discovered that the degrees of THC rose from about four p.c in 1995 to about 12 p.c in 2014.

  In the meantime, ranges of the non-psychoactive compound cannabidiol fell from zero.28 p.c in 2001 to zero.15 p.c in 2014, the researchers reported within the journal Organic Psychiatry. Because of this, THC ranges have been 14 occasions the extent of cannabidiol in 1995; in 2014, that ratio had grown to 80.

  THC intensifies the results of marijuana, the researchers mentioned, so larger THC variations of the drug could increase the chance of nasty unwanted effects, like panic or nervousness. Extra THC additionally means pricier pot, which is one motive growers have been cultivating larger octane strains.

• 

  Controversy over cardiac deaths

  It isn't attainable to overdose on marijuana like you'll be able to on heroin or cocaine. However in 2014, German researchers induced an issue after they linked the sudden deaths of two males to cardiovascular issues from pot smoking. The instances have been uncommon. In a single, a seemingly wholesome 23-year-old man collapsed and died on public transportation with marijuana in his pocket. Within the different case, a 28-year-old man was discovered useless with rolling papers and a plastic dishevelled of marijuana at his aspect. Each males have been discovered to have THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, of their tissues at a postmortem.

  "After exclusion of different causes of loss of life, we assume that the younger males died from cardiovascular issues evoked by smoking hashish," the researchers wrote.

  Responding to the findings, exterior researchers mentioned on the time that the conclusions have been affordable, given analysis on the cardiovascular results of marijuana. Nonetheless, the case studies induced intense public controversy and prompted "some fairly disagreeable reactions from people," the research researchers instructed Reside Science.

• 

  Credit score: You might be allergic to pot

  Aaa-chooo! Like many different crops, marijuana can set off allergic reactions in individuals, in response to a 2015 overview within the journal Annals of Allergy, Bronchial asthma & Immunology. Each the plant's pollen and its smoke could cause allergic reactions in some individuals, the researchers mentioned. Marijuana allergic reactions are comparatively uncommon, they wrote, however they're on the rise and have in all probability been underreported or unnoticed as a result of the drug has lengthy been unlawful.

  Many of the reported signs of pot allergic reactions are much like these of run-of-the-mill hay fever: itchy eyes, coughing, sneezing, occasional hives. Nonetheless, there have been a number of reported instances of individuals having anaphylactic reactions to hemp or marijuana. Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening response to an allergen that may trigger the airways to swell shut.

• 

  Credit score: hywards/Shutterstock.com

  Is pot addictive? Ask your genes

  For a subset of pot customers, marijuana turns into a substance of dependence. Which means that they expertise signs of withdrawal, similar to irritability and restlessness, after they try and cease utilizing the drug. There may be tutorial debate over how many individuals ought to be thought-about depending on marijuana, however nationwide epidemiological research put the speed at about 9 p.c of customers, in response to the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse.

  Marijuana dependence could have genetic underpinnings. A 2016 research uncovered three genetic variants related to dependence. One variant is concerned in regulating calcium within the blood and has been linked with opioid dependence; one other is concerned with the expansion of the central nervous system, the researchers reported within the journal JAMA Psychiatry. The genetic variations have been merely related to dependence, and the research could not show that having one among these variants induced dependence. However, the researchers discovered that the genetic variations they'd found additionally are inclined to happen in individuals with despair, which might clarify why dependence and despair usually go hand-in-hand.

• 

  Credit score: Alice Day/Shutterstock.com

  Pot and Viagra do not combine

  Marijuana compounds can inhibit sure liver enzymes known as cytochrome P450 enzymes. What does that imply? Effectively, for one factor, that Viagra will not break down as readily within the blood of somebody who's been toking up.

  Viagra (sildenafil) is damaged down by cytochrome P450 enzymes, and as a 2001 research put it, "[t]right here is the likelihood that elevated plasma concentrations of sildenafil might happen with coadministration of recognized inhibitors of" these enzymes. This might trigger antagonistic unwanted effects. One 2002 case report within the journal Scientific Cardiology outlined the case of a 41-year-old man who skilled a coronary heart assault after mixing marijuana and Viagra the evening earlier than. Although the medical doctors could not show drug interplay induced the center assault, they warned different physicians to think about the enzyme-inhibiting unwanted effects of pot after they prescribe Viagra.

• 

  Credit score: Pe3k / Shutterstock.com

  Again to the Future

  In some ways, the transfer towards legalization of marijuana, notably medical marijuana, is a return to the established order … the very long-ago establishment. In America, earlier than the 1906 Pure Meals and Drug Act, hashish was a standard ingredient in medicinal tinctures, and sellers did not even have to say it on their labels.

  Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, although, Mexican immigration to the USA spiked because of the Mexican Revolution, in response to PBS Frontline. Folks shifting from Mexico introduced alongside the customized of utilizing marijuana recreationally, and the drug turned linked with public fears of the newcomers. In line with U.S. Customs and Border Safety, the federal authorities waffled on making marijuana unlawful whilst states enacted their very own legal guidelines — an odd mirror picture of the legalization course of happening as we speak. However, Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger campaigned to quash leisure marijuana, an effort that led to the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. This legislation allowed for the importation of marijuana, however closely taxed it, making it too costly for leisure use.

• 

  Credit score: gmstockstudio | Shutterstock.com

  Dangerous journey

  It is well-known that pot can typically trigger paranoia. However in 2011, medical doctors reported one other attainable unfavourable aspect impact of marijuana: cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. This is a touch as to what that is likely to be — "emesis" is the Latin for "vomiting."

  Sure, marijuana use can typically result in episodes of uncontrollable vomiting. The cycle often has three phases, researchers wrote within the journal Present Drug Abuse Opinions. First, sufferers (often continual marijuana customers) develop morning nausea and normal stomach discomfort. However they usually improve their marijuana use, hoping for the drug's anti-nausea results to kick in. Then comes the hyperemesis half. Sufferers vomit repeatedly, as much as 5 occasions an hour, for one or two days. The one assistance is sizzling showers. It may well take days, weeks and even months earlier than the sufferers get better and get again to regular. Stopping hashish use can forestall relapse.

  However cannabinoid hyperemesis stays in any other case largely mysterious. There is not any knowledge on how many individuals expertise it, or why it appears to be a small proportion of pot customers, the researchers wrote. There's additionally no rationalization of why marijuana, recognized for its anti-emetic properties, ought to have the alternative impact in some individuals. THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, has an anti-nausea impact on the central nervous system, the researchers wrote. Nonetheless, some cannabinoid compounds gradual the intestine, stopping it from emptying as shortly within the ordinary means. For some individuals, this slowdown would possibly override the anti-emetic impact of THC and trigger vomiting, the researchers speculated.

• 

  Credit score: Brian Goodman/Shutterstock.com

  Marijuana strategies

  In November 2016, California, Massachusetts and Nevada joined Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington in legalizing leisure pot. (Maine's legalization initiative narrowly handed, and opponents have been trying a recount within the week after the election.) An October 2016 research within the journal Drug Data means that legalization won't simply affect the supply of pot, however the way it's consumed.

  The researchers checked out about 2,800 individuals who had used marijuana not less than as soon as. The individuals weren't nationally consultant. Nonetheless, the research authors discovered that individuals in states the place marijuana is authorized have been extra prone to have used hashish by vaping it or by ingesting edibles than individuals in states the place marijuana is not authorized. The next density of pot outlets and a better period of time since legalization have been additionally linked to larger charges of vaping and edible consumption.

• 

  Drug bust report

  The Guinness Ebook of World Data apparently doesn't maintain any information for the quantities of marijuana grown, smoked or in any other case consumed. However the drug does present up within the report books. The "bulkiest drug seizure" of marijuana ever was 2,903 metric tons, or 6.four million kilos, that got here from a Colombian drug operation. That was one-fifth of the complete unlawful import of marijuana into the USA per yr on the time, in response to a 1982 New York Occasions article.

  This seizure, code-named "Operation Tiburon," additionally led to the arrests of 495 individuals and the seizure of 95 boats thought for use in drug smuggling.  

• 

  Did the Bard toke?

  Possibly you've got heard that we owe Hamlet and King Lear to a stoner. In 2001, an anthropologist reported that he'd found marijuana residue on the fragments of a pipe present in William Shakespeare's backyard in England. Combining that discovery with an apart a few "famous weed" within the playwright's Sonnet 76, the anthropologist requested for permission to open Shakespeare's grave in 2011 and seek for indicators of hashish in any hair or fingernails.

  That by no means occurred, although a ground-penetrating radar survey in 2016 revealed that Shakespeare's corpse in all probability would not have any hair anyway — his cranium is almost certainly lacking.

• 

  Credit score: OpenRangeStock/Shutterstock.com

  First transcontinental marijuana commerce

  The world's first-known pot sellers have been the nomads of the Jap European Steppe, in response to a 2016 research.

  The Yamnaya, merchants from what's now Russia and Ukraine, could have traded hashish all through Europe and East Asia round 5,000 years in the past, the researchers discovered. The plant itself was in use in each Europe and Asia not less than 10,200 years in the past and grew naturally throughout each continents. However the archaeological report exhibits a spike in hashish use in East Asia round 5,000 years in the past, proper across the time when the nomadic Yamnaya established a commerce route throughout the steppes. Yamnaya websites present indicators of hashish burning, suggesting they could have introduced the behavior of smoking marijuana with them as they moved about.

• 

  Taking it to the grave

  Round 2,700 years in the past, a 45-year-old man died, in all probability within the highlands of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang, China. Shortly thereafter, his bones have been taken and interred in a cemetery within the Gobi Desert, known as Yanghai. Alongside his physique, somebody positioned a bag and a bowl of 28 ounces (789 grams) of Hashish sativa, in response to researchers who studied the stays and wrote about their findings in 2008 within the Journal of Experimental Botany.

  Preserved by dry desert situations, the plant matter was nonetheless tinted inexperienced, although it did not have the distinctive hashish odor. (Nor did its seeds germinate into crops — the researchers tried!) The pressure gave the impression to be domesticated primarily based on the scale and form of its seeds, and a molecular evaluation revealed compounds that included cannabidiol, cannabichromene and cannabicyclol. The plant within the bowl had been barely floor, suggesting that it was getting used for "medicinal or mystical attributes," the researchers wrote.  

• 

  Credit score: Hongen Jiang et al. Financial Botany. 2016.

  Buried in hemp

  Across the similar time that the 45-year-old man went to his everlasting relaxation subsequent to a stash of pot, one other man in a neighboring cemetery had the same, if barely stranger, burial. In October 2016, researchers reported that they'd discovered the grave of a 35-year-old man who'd been laid to relaxation underneath a shroud of hashish.

  The grave was in Jiayi, a cemetery not removed from Yanghai, in western China. Its occupant was a Caucasian man mendacity on a mattress of wood slats. Over his chest have been 13 Hashish sativa crops, draped diagonally from the person's chin to his pelvis. Researchers estimated the age of the burial at between 2,400 and a pair of,800 years outdated. It is unclear why the person was buried underneath a layer of hashish, however the growth of the uprooted crops means that he died in August or September.

• 

  Thoughts-altering inexperienced

  Getting excessive would possibly have an effect on the way you seen profitable and dropping. In a 2016 research, individuals performed a sport by which they may win a number of cents or lose a number of , relying how nicely they did. As they performed, researchers scanned their brains, specializing in a small space known as the nucleus accumbens that is answerable for processing rewards.

  The research discovered that individuals who had used marijuana extra confirmed weaker nucleus accumbens responses to the prospect of profitable than individuals who'd used the drug much less. After all, the research could not show that marijuana use straight induced the mind modifications — it may very well be that there's some third reason for each, or an underlying motive why somebody with a lessened reward response would possibly gravitate towards marijuana use, the researchers mentioned.

  Authentic article on Reside Science.

Subsequent Earlier

1 of 27

2 of 27

three of 27

four of 27

5 of 27

6 of 27

7 of 27

eight of 27

9 of 27

10 of 27

11 of 27

12 of 27

13 of 27

14 of 27

15 of 27

16 of 27

17 of 27

18 of 27

19 of 27

20 of 27

21 of 27

22 of 27

23 of 27

24 of 27

25 of 27

26 of 27

27 of 27

Writer Bio

---

Stephanie Pappas, Reside Science Contributor

Stephanie interned as a science author at Stanford College Medical Faculty, and in addition interned at ScienceNow journal and the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She has a bachelor's diploma in psychology from the College of South Carolina and a graduate certificates in science writing from the College of California, Santa Cruz.

Stephanie Pappas, Reside Science Contributor on

Science E-newsletter: Subscribe

Observe Us

1.