Marijuana, weed, pot, dope, grass are different names for the same drug that comes from the cannabis plant. You can smoke it, drink it, vape it, or eat it. Most people use marijuana for pleasure and recreation. But now some doctors are prescribing it for specific medical conditions and symptoms.
According to Dr. Avadhesh Narayan Khare MD Medicine, DM Cardiologist, at LBS Heart hospital, Bhopal, Marijuana affects both the mind and body as it has a mind-altering compound in it. It can be addictive and may also be harmful to some people’s health. Well, marijuana has both short term and long term effects like people who smoke marijuana may face short-term memory problems, Severe anxiety, including fear that one is being watched or followed (paranoia), Very strange behavior, seeing, hearing or smelling things that aren’t there and not being able to tell imagination from reality (psychosis).
Most people use marijuana to get ‘High’. Marijuana is a psychoactive ingredient, THC, which stimulates the part of the brain that responds to pleasure, like food and sex. It unleashes a chemical called dopamine, which gives you a euphoric, relaxed feeling. If you smoke weed, the THC could get into your bloodstream quickly enough for you to get your high in seconds or minutes. Its effects get waved off in 1-3 hours as the THC level peaks in just 30 minutes.
Here’s 4 Most Common Effects Of Marijuana On Your Body:
It May Affects Your Mental Health
Smoking marijuana can affect your mental health as everyone doesn’t have a pleasant marijuana experience. Marijuana often leaves you anxious, afraid, and panicked.
Therefore, smoking marijuana may increase your chances of clinical depression or worsen the symptoms of any mental disorders you already have. High doses of it can make you paranoid or lose touch with reality so you hear or see things that aren’t there.
Your Thinking May Get Distorted
Marijuana affects your senses and judgment and it can differ depending on things like how potent your pot was, how you took it, and much marijuana you’ve used in the past. According to reports, consumption of marijuana can distort your sense of time and can hurt your motor skills, and lower your inhibitions so you may have risky sex or take other chances.
Your Lungs May Hurt
Smoking marijuana can inflame and irritate your lungs. Reports say, if you use it regularly, you could have the same breathing problems as someone who smokes cigarettes. This can be an ongoing cough with colored mucus. Your lungs tend to pick up infections easily and that’s partly because THC seems to weaken some users’ immune systems.
It May Harm Your Heart
Marijuana makes your heart work harder like, normally the heart beats about 50 to 70 times a minute. But it can jump to 70 to 120 beats or more than that per minute for 3 hours after the effects of pot kick in. Therefore, these tar and other chemicals in marijuana or pot may raise your chance of heart attack or stroke. If you are older the danger increases
The danger is even bigger if you’re older or if you already have heart problems.
Dr. Khare said, marijuana can have both short term and long term effects like:
Short Term Effects are
- Panic
- Hallucinations
- Loss of sense of personal identity
- Lowered reaction time
- Increased heart rate (risk of heart attack)
- Increased risk of stroke
- Problems with coordination (impairing safe driving or playing sports)
- Sexual problems (for males)
- Up to seven times more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections
than non-users (for females) 22,32 & 33
Long Term Effects:
- Decline in IQ (up to 8 points if prolonged use started in adolescent age)
- Poor school performance and higher chance of dropping out
- Impaired thinking and ability to learn and perform complex tasks
- Lower life satisfaction
- Addiction (about 9% of adults and 17% of people who started smoking as teens)
- Potential development of opiate abuse
- Relationship problems, intimate partner violence
- Antisocial behavior including stealing money or lying
- Financial difficulties
- Increased welfare
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