Marijuana: Cannabis and 20 th Century Cannabis Essay

Submitted By Magicmoneymel1
Words: 811
Pages: 4

Background

Cannabis, also known as marijuana is a preparation of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug and as medicine. The principle compound involved is thc. Cannabis has psychoactive and physiological effects when consumed. sources report that minimum amount of THC required to have a perceptible psychoactive effect is about 10 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.

Use
Contemporary uses of cannabis are as a recreational drug, as religious or spiritual rites, or as medicine. In 2004, it is estimated that global consumption of cannabis indicated that approximately 4% of the adult world population (162 million people) used cannabis annually, and that approximately 0.6% (22.5 million) of people used cannabis daily. Since the early 20th century cannabis has been subject to legal restrictions with the possession, use, and sale of cannabis.it has been said that cannabis is the most-used illicit drug in the world.

Effects
Cannabis has psychoactive and physiological effects when consumed. Aside from a subjective change in perception and, most notably, mood, the most common short-term physical and neurological effects include increased heart rate, increased appetite and consumption of food, lowered blood pressure, impairment of short-term and working memory, motor coordination, and concentration. Long-term effects are less clear. While many psychoactive drugs clearly fall into the category of either stimulant, depressant, or hallucinogen, cannabis exhibits a mix of all properties

Medicinal uses
Cannabis can be use as a pain reliever also to treat multiple diseases and disorders. These include glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, alzheimers disease, breast cancer, hiv/aids, brain cancer, opioid dependence and als symptoms.

At least 200,000 students in the US have been denied financial aid for college simply because of drug convictions on their records.
Marijuana is the most common illegal drug used in the United States with roughly 100 million Americans admitting to trying marijuana at least once.
11.5% of Americans (more than 25 million) have smoked marijuana in the last year.

An individual would need to smoke 800 joints to die, according to one report. The cause of death would be poisoning from carbon monoxide.
Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning, and more than 400,000 people die each year from causes related attributed to tobacco smoking.
According to the prestigious European medical journal, The Lancet, "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco."i

Every day roughly 6,000 Americans use marijuana for the first time, according to one national survey. f

22.6% of high school seniors in the US used marijuana in the past 30 days compared with 18.7% who smoked cigarette, according to 2011 data.l

Cannabis plants can grow in nearly any ecosystem and average one to two inches of growth per day, and can grow up to 18 feet.a

In Ancient China cannabis seeds were used as a food source as early as 6000 B.C. and as a medicinal drug as in 2737 B.C. by Chinese emperor Shen Nung. The emperor