How to use this Page

By Gary Wenk

Marijuana is the leafy material from Cannabis indica plant that is generally smoked. By weight, it typically contains 2%-5% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive agent. However the plant also contains about fifty other cannabinoid-based compounds, including cannabidiol (CBD).

One Internet ad claims that “cannabidiol (CBD) can cure arthritis, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, schizophrenia, and epilepsy.” CBD is the main non-psychotropic cannabinoid present in the Cannabis sativa plant, constituting up to 40% of its extract. Somehow this one particular component of the marijuana plant has become much more popular than all of the sixty (at least) other biologically active molecules that have been isolated from this plant, to the point where growers are breeding marijuana plants with significantly higher levels of CBD.

Why are people so excited about CBD? The answer lies in unpacking a series of complex truths, making distinctions between what is known and what is not known, and dispelling some false claims.

The human brain naturally possesses a pair of protein receptors that respond to endogenous marijuana-like chemicals. These receptors are incredibly common and are found throughout the human brain. When a person smokes marijuana, all of the various chemicals in the plant are inhaled, ultimately, into the brain where they find and bind to these receptors, similar to a key fitting into a lock. Which receptors are affected, and what parts of the brain are involved, differs for just about everyone, depending upon their genetic make-up, drug-taking history, and expectations regarding the experience; the last factor being commonly known as the placebo effect.

The images above come from Dr. Wenk’s research at Ohio State University, and demonstrate an increase in hippocampus neuron activity in rats following a cannabinoid treatment.

Both CBD and THC are capable of interacting with this complex variety of proteins. However, and this is where things get interesting, they do not do so with the same degree of effectiveness. Scientists have shown that THC is over one thousand times more potent than is CBD, meaning a person would need to consume 1,000 “joints” of the genetically modified CDB-marijuana plant to get high. This chemical property of CBD has led to the accurate claim that CBD does not make one feel “high.” However, the low potency of CBD may also indicate that, by itself, it offers limited clinical benefits – currently- no one knows. Animal studies have discovered many beneficial effects of CBD but only when administered at very high doses.

What has become quite apparent is that no single component of the plant is entirely good or bad, therapeutic or harmful, or deserving of our complete attention. To date, all of the positive evidence supporting the use of medical marijuana in humans has come from studies of the entire plant or experimental investigations of THC. Given the very low potency of CBD within the brain it is highly unlikely that CBD alone will provide significant clinical benefit. Some small clinical trials are being initiated; until rigorous scientific studies are completed no one can claim that CBD is better than THC.

Gary L. Wenk, PhD., a Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience & Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics at the Ohio State University and Medical Center, is a leading authority on the consequences of chronic brain inflammation and animal models of Alzheimer’s disease. He is also the author of Your Brain on Food: How Chemicals Control Your Thoughts and Feelings.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image Credit: First image is from United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Is CBD better than THC?: exploring compounds in marijuana appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• The 4/20 update
• The continuing threat of nuclear weapons
• Identifying unexpected strengths in adolescents

 

Well, luck takes many forms this week!  First it came as a four leaf clover–discovered next to some poison ivy, …

Continue reading »

Well, luck takes many forms this week!  First it came as a four leaf clover–discovered next to some poison ivy, …

Continue reading »

1. A national security crisis occurs when the President can't sit down.
2. When will they permit inter-species marriage?
3. Ducks utter pithy maxims all the time, but no one's translated them.
4. Seeds buried with due dignity.
5. The end is nigh.
6. Bottom half: Some sort of race

For this week's Illustration Friday topic, I decided to play with watercolors and created this little painting of one of my favorite flowers - poppies (which I think are a perennial flower, but I could be wrong).
This painting is cobbled together from several photos I'd taken when we lived in Los Angeles. This type of poppy (Alpine poppy?) was a popular garden flower in California. I remember seeing sizeable beds of them at my husband's office and we had some smaller collections of them at our little apartment complex. I always looked forward to their blooming every spring!

This painting is for sale - here - at my Etsy shop.

I finished up this one a while ago, but just came back to it this week to add a couple minor finishing touches. It seems like it always helps to step away from a painting for a while and come back to it later with a fresh eye.

I wanted to have red punctuating the green wall of leaves, so for a while it was a toss up between tomatoes and scarlet runner pole beans. I can't say why, but the pole beans won out this round. Tomatoes will still have their day, I'm sure.

A fragment of the artwork from the game board of The Game of Spodunk showing the first two squares. It's very unlucky to land your goose on La Popesse.
Pen and ink on watercolour 28cm x 9cm. Click to enlarge.

Watching Thames TV in bed.
Biro 13.5cm x 10cm. Click to enlarge.

Watching Thames TV in bed.
Biro 13.5cm x 10cm. Click to enlarge.

Four more sketches for the latest card game.
Pen and ink with watercolour, 11cm x 5cm each.Click to enlarge.

Here's something I'm working on:
This image is taken from a thumbnail sketched out while at my old job ten or so years ago. I love when I finally get a chance to get back to old ideas. I think I'm going to attempt to paint this one digitally.

In trying to work out a decorative back to my Cards of Uut series of woodcuts, I got a bit carried away with the drawing and created this pen and ink version.
Ink and watercolour 36cm x 26cm. Click to enlarge.

Card 27 in the current series.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.

Today's page features the pill box hat, transubstantiation of the seven of diamonds, two leaf bearers, John Galliano in Hell forced to wear a rotting fish arse for eternity, the ultimate baby pacifier and finally, at the bottom of the page......oh, never mind.
Click to enlarge.

I had this idea today for a comic book called The Brain Yard.
Click to enlarge.

I'm having trouble locating a reliable sweatshop to mass produce my Waved Muzzlet hat. Luckily, we still have plenty of toilet plunger factories in the UK, so I'll have no trouble manufacturing the Yellow Imperial hat for boys.
Ink and watercolour 11cm x 24cm. Click to enlarge.

From my Spring Collection of children's wear, an Opelet Sea Anemone hat for boys and girls.
Pen and ink over watercolour 18cm x 15cm. Click to enlarge.