The marijuana plant Cannabis sativa contains a bewildering Introduction array of organic chemicals. As is true with other botanic species, there are representatives of almost all chemical classes present, including monoand sesquiterpenes, carbohydrates, aromatics, and a variety of nitrogenous compounds. Interest in the study of this plant has centered primarily on the resinous fraction, as it i...

2015 subjects were interviewed at musical events and raves in Northern Italy: average age 25.1, 42% female, 67% work, 42% study, 61% have higher certificate of education. 3.8% used drugs for the first time in the last year, and 60% have been using drugs for over 5 years, age of first use 16.3. In the last year, 26% have tried a mix of drugs, 52% alcohol and drugs, 48% have driven after drinking...

'Dagga' is our word for marihuana, hashish, bhang, or Cannabis sativa L. But dagga is also the name applied to 14 species of the plant leonotis, indigenous and common in South Africa. The word has come into our English language via Afrikaans which derived it from pure Hottentot 'daga'. It is only assumed that the idea in the Hottentot mind which attached the word to the plant cannabis had to do...

Delta9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta9-THC), the major psychoactive ingredient in preparations of Cannabis sativa (marijuana, hashish), elicits central nervous system (CNS) responses, including cognitive alterations and euphoria. These responses account for the abuse potential of cannabis, while other effects such as analgesia suggest potential medicinal applications. To study the role of the majo...

This paper describes quantitative methods for determination of urinary drugs/metabolites. The analysis included indicators of opiate (morphine, codeine, 6-monoacetylmorphine) and methadone (methadone) consumption, indicator of marihuana/hashish consumption (11-nor-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid), indicators of cocaine consumption (cocaine, benzoylecgonine, and ecgonine methyl ester) a...

In the spring of 1968 we conducted a series of pilot experiments on acute marijuana intoxication in human subjects. The study was not undertaken to prove or disprove popularly held convictions about marijuana as an intoxicant, to compare it with other drugs, or to introduce our own opinions. Our concern was simply to collect some long overdue pharmacological data. In this article we describe th...

Substances capable of changing the functions of the central nervous system are widely distributed in plant kingdom, and many of them were discovered by ancient food-gatherers at the dawn of humanity. In the Old World only a few substances producing euphoria or altered states of consciousness and having habit-forming properties are still widely used. They are the products of poppy (opium, morphi...

A five-year prospective study (March 2003-March 2008) of burn victims hospitalized in a major burns centre in Iran was conducted in order to survey the aetiology and outcome of burns in patients who were drug addicts. Three hundred and thirty patients addicted to drugs were identified and stratified by age, sex, burn size, presence or absence of inhalation injury, kinds of abuse agents, and cau...

To date, a large number of controlled clinical trials have been done evaluating the therapeutic applications of cannabis and cannabis-based preparations. In 2006, an excellent review was published, discussing the clinical trials performed in the period 1975 to June 2005 [Ben Amar 2006]. The current review reports on the more recent clinical data available. A systematic search was performed in t...

Herbal cannabis, smoked in the form of marihuana or hashish, is the most common illicit drug consumed in the Western world. In the brain, cannabinoids interact with neuronal CB1 receptors, thereby producing a marked reduction of motor activity. Here, we report that the motor depressant effect produced by the cannabinoid receptor agonist (-)-cis-3-[2-hydroxy-4-(1,1-dimethylheptyl)phenyl]trans-4-...