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Medical Video: The Health Effects of Marijuana - Expert Q&A
Immediately after the first suction, the smoke from burning marijuana cigarettes will release an active substance called tetrahydracannabinol, or THC, into the bloodstream to get to the brain and other internal organs. These blood-soluble chemicals cause the effects of marijuana on the body you can immediately feel after your first cigarette.
Cannabis smoking is known to cause an increase in heart rate from 20 percent to 100 percent even almost instantly after smoking and the effect can last up to three hours.
Now it is suspected that there may be an effect of marijuana that can last long term. According to a study published in the journal Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, smoking marijuana can interfere with coordination and other motor skills - even when you're not jazzed. What is the reason?
The effect of marijuana on your body
Researchers found that people who smoked marijuana had differences in certain brain regions when compared to people who did not use marijuana. Blood-borne THC residues trigger your brain to release large amounts of dopamine, a natural chemical compound that triggers a happy mood. This is why you can sink into euphoria, aka blinding, after smoking marijuana. This glowing feeling of fluttering makes you unconscious of space and time during and after smoking marijuana.
The brain becomes difficult to remember
In the hippocampus, the brain area where long-term memory is stored, THC changes the way you process information, so your logic and decision-making processes may be disrupted. The effect of marijuana may also make it difficult for you to form new memories when you are jazzed. Very large doses of marijuana or high concentrations of THC can also cause hallucinations or delusions. According to NIDA, there might be a connection between cannabis use and some mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.
You become difficult to focus and unbalanced
The effect of marijuana also shows a decrease in activity in the cerebellum and basal ganglia, areas of the brain associated with motor control, coordination, and body balance, so that it can affect reaction time, memory, and the ability to switch between different tasks (multitasking). When you recover from being jazzed, you may feel tired, a little depressed, or out of focus. In some people, marijuana can cause anxiety. All of the changes above mean that it is actually not safe for you to drive or operate machinery or heavy equipment while still under the influence of marijuana.
Evidence also shows that marijuana can change the way the brain processes information and transmits signals to members of the body, by influencing a person's motor control. Even more surprising, it turns out the effect of marijuana on gestures is actually found to be smaller opportunities for regular and regular marijuana users, compared to those who only suck marijuana occasionally.
Researchers say that this might happen because chronic use causes an increase in tolerance to the effects of marijuana, or perhaps because other brain regions begin to offset the effects of marijuana on decreasing motor skills, although further research is needed to determine this cause.
