Cannabis is a magical plant for mental, physical and spiritual enhancement. It’s fun, but having been consumed to treat aches and ailments for millennia, medical cannabis or medical marijuana is now legal in Australia and many parts of the world.
Marijuana, also known as weed, pot, grass, bud, Mary Jane and many other nicknames, is the dried flowers of the Cannabis sativa plant. Native to central and south Asia, the marijuana and cannabis plant as a whole have been used as a psychoactive drug and a medicine or therapy for centuries.
Marijuana’s medicinal effects come from compounds in the plant known as cannabinoids, which bind to naturally-occurring receptors in the human body known as endocannabinoids and are proven to work a litany of wonders on the body.
What is medical marijuana used for and what are benefits?
Medical marijuana is most commonly prescribed in Australia for chronic pain, followed by anxiety and sleep disorders. There are over 400 medical marijuana products on the market including capsules, gummies, lozenges, wafers and sprays, and oil.
Most medically available cannabinoids are plant-derived, but can also be synthetically produced. In terms of chemical makeup, the main active ingredients are THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol). The shorthand maths has always been that THC gets you blasted into space, while CBD is medicinal in some way.
Lately, there has been political battle over whether CBD impairs your ability to drive, but around the coffee table on a Saturday night questions always come up over everything from what happens when you mix alcohol and cannabis or whether CBD could interact with prescription medicine.
Medicinally speaking, there are three categories of products:
- isolates, meaning they are THC or CBD only
- full-spectrum, meaning they are high in THC or CBD but also contain lower levels of lesser-known cannabinoids
- broad-spectrum, meaning they have a range of cannabinoids but without THC
What are the side effects?
The product differences matter because there can be side effects to medical marijuana. Both CBD and THC products have been recorded to cause fatigue, sedation, vertigo, nausea and vomiting, fever and decreased appetite. Products high in THC have also been associated with more dangerous side effects such as convulsions, confusion, psychosis and cognitive distortion. This is because THC has intoxicating properties, so these THC products are scheduled higher on the TGA registry, meaning they are subject to more control and regulation due to these negative side effects. CBD has a safer and more societally acceptable profile – it doesn’t actually bond with your cannabinoid receptors and scientists believe it slows the breakdown of endocannabinoids already in your body.
