Nine myths and truths of marijuana

Beyond the social and legal debate surrounding this ancestral plant, Cromos consulted a specialist about its medicinal benefits.

1. Smoking generates dependence

False

Improved seeds, such as Cripi, generate a relatively strong dependence, although very far from that produced by hard drugs such as heroin and bazuco. When your intake is withdrawn, there is a brief withdrawal syndrome that psychologically stable people can overcome.

2. Stimulate creativity

False

It is a substance that increases the proportion between visual and auditory signals. As perception affects, which is the psychological reaction to sensory stimuli, people believe that it decodes things better, but it is not like that: it captures exactly the same.

3. Consuming it for recreational use harms the health

Relative

Marijuana is not bad, but its recreational use would be possible if we had a culture of moderate consumption. The Indians used it in rites as wine is consumed in Europe at lunch. Society does not make adequate use of what is available (the same applies to alcohol, fast food, sports exaggerated, among others), so its trivial consumption can be harmful.

4. Counteract the effects of chemotherapy

True

Being an antiemetic substance, it prevents vomiting and nausea. In countries like Israel or the United States it is medicated with the objective of activating the immune system; therefore, it is now used to control the consequences of chemotherapy.

5. Smoking causes cancer in the lungs

True

Cancer is produced by tars derived from grass combustion, not by marijuana as such. As the smoked vegetable turns into charcoal, that coal, when it reaches the lung, covers the alveoli, damaging the organs.

6. It is the gateway to the consumption of other substances

Relative

From the pharmacological point of view, it does not induce other drugs. The discussion is more social than medical. As the person who uses marijuana purchases it from a seller who in most cases also deals with other substances, he has the facility to try other drugs.

7. It serves as a relaxant

True

We should not talk about marijuana but about marijuana. There are some medicines that can produce the relaxation effect, but they are strains produced in laboratories approved by the Federal Drug Administration of the United States.

8. Stumbles

True

People have a system that consists of anandamide neurotransmitters and CB1 and CB2 receptors. Marijuana acts on these receptors as if they were endocannabinoids, altering the control of movement.

9. It serves to sleep

Relative

When marijuana has a certain balance of substances, it produces sleep, but it can also alter it. People who consume it during the day, possibly at night, will have sleep disturbances and will need more doses to go back to sleep.