Marijuana and its effects on health and work related issues

MARIJUANA

This is a drug found in the flowering tops and leaves of a hemp plant which grows in mild climates in countries around the world. Known variously as pot, tea, grass, weed, Mary Jane, hash, and kif, marijuana is smoked in short cigarettes or pipe-full made up of the leaves and flowers of the plant.

The smoke has an odor resembling burnt rope or dried grass. Marijuana produces certain clear-cut physical reactions: increase in heartbeat, lowering of body temperature, reddening of the eyes. In addition, the drug affects blood sugar levels, stimulates appetite, and tends to dehydrate the body. 

The effects on emotions and senses vary considerably not only with the quantity and strength of the drug used but also with the circum- stances, including the social setting and the expectations of the user, beginning about fifteen minutes after inhalation of the smoke and for as long as four hours, some users feel excited, some depressed, some experience no mood change.

Often, the sense of time and distance becomes distorted so that a minute may seem as long as an hour, a nearby object may seem far off. The drug affects ability to perform any task requiring clear thinking and good reflexes. Marijuana is an extremely controversial drug. There is a prevailing belief that it is harmless, but some investigators are convinced it is not. 

A recent survey of 2,700 doctors and other professionals in mental health practice disclosed that they had seen 1,887 patients with adverse reactions to marijuana in a period of eighteen months.

As some scientists note, "The very unpredictability of marijuana on different individuals and on the same individual at different times and under different conditions increases the risk to the user." Much still remains to be learned about the long-term effects and possible dangers of marijuana; and aided now by the recent synthesis of the drug's active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, and investigations are being carried out. 

Only very recently has hashish, a drug known for centuries, become a major element in what has been called "America's drug subculture." Both hashish and marijuana come from the same plant. While marijuana is made from the tops and leaves, hashish is the dried resin of the plant. Hashish is often sold in chunks about one-inch square and one- quarter-inch thick and looks much like a clod of dirt. It has little taste -a hint of the household spice thyme.

 Users may put a tiny pebble of it in a pipe or sprinkle a few crumbs of it onto a cookie. Reactions are varied. Some users feel nothing but a slight drowsiness. At the other extreme, some go into panic and scream that they are losing their minds. Some authorities report that if there is a psychological disability, the drug tends to aggravate it and that large doses can cause the same kind of psychotic breakdown as LSD can produce. No one really knows the long-term effects of the drug. Users claim that there will be no permanent effects upon body or mind.

On the other hand, doctors in countries with long histories of hashish usage suggest that the user will become lethargic, apathetic. As this is written, plans are being formulated for the first United States scientific studies of hashish.