Frankly ... Posthuman  Cannabis as a panacea?

​Since marijuana can be legally distributed and sold for leisure purposes in California, there is another heated debate about the benefits and harms of cannabis. Liwen Qin is interested in the facts.

Scientists are increasingly using cannabis in medical research. This means that a medicine used in Asia for thousands of years might be “liberated” from a two centuries “jail term” to offer more potential for development. This trend has helped to highlight how much is still unknown about our nervous and immune systems. There are also some new social and economic impacts of legalizing cannabis usage.

The USA live it up

Since January 2019, recreational marijuana can be legally transmitted and sold in California, a development which has stimulated another round of heated debates about the benefits and harmful effects of cannabis. To start with, we need to know that cannabis plants have two main molecules at work: THC and CBD. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is better known because it is the psychoactive element.

But CBD, or cannabinoids, is getting more attention for its remarkable medicinal effects without getting the users intoxicated. CBD shields neurons from oxidative stress, a damaging process common in many neurological disorders, including epilepsy.

How caring our body is

Interestingly, our bodies have many receptors to accept the THC and CBDs: in the brain, the kidneys, the lungs and the liver, white blood cells of the immune system, the gut, and the spleen. The reason is surprising: our bodies produce their own CBD molecules in times of need to relax or protect ourselves. This was discovered in 1992 by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam from Brazil, the “Godfather of Cannabis Research”.

The receptors and transmitters system discovered by his colleagues is called the endocannabinoid system. It is central to how the body maintains and returns to its baseline state after being disturbed. When our bodies are injured, damaged or physically stressed, they increase local CBD to soothe and even elate us. A very considerate design. However, we still don’t know much about how CBD works.

Search for alternative medicines

Today, scientists are studying CBD as a possible treatment for epilepsy, autism spectrum disorders, an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma, prevention of acute graft versus host disease for bone-marrow transplant patients or nerve pains of chemo patients, etc. Doctors and researchers are often not the leaders, but followers of self-experimenting patients who had no better choices but to seek alternative medicines to deal with their troubles.

Many of these conditions, like epilepsy in children, are so severe that the desperate families of the patients would risk violating the law to buy illegal CBD products or cannabis for treatment. Positive and even miraculous effects can be observed from time to time, but these research activities are still in their early stages. This has led to the formation of a movement lending emotional support for the lessening of regulations in the medical use/research of cannabis in different countries, particularly in the US in the past 6 years.

Stock markets react positively

The widening use of cannabis has boosted a prospering industry. Stock markets react positively. Many companies whose businesses are related to cannabis or CBD production witness their stock prices rocketing. Even in China, a country that has the death penalty for trading in cannabis, several provinces have allowed companies to cultivate cannabis for industrial purposes in the past years.

In the coming decade, maybe we would witness a more lenient attitude towards cannabis usage in human societies. And gradually, the future generations would look back to our time with bafflement, just like when we look back to the Prohibition Era through today’s lens.

 

October 2019