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Health

Marijuana and the Body

= Introduction = Marijuana has many names such as Blunt, Boom, Bud, Gangster, Ganja, Grass, Green, Hash, Herb, Joint, Pot, Reefer, Sinsemilla, Skunk, and Weed. Marijuana is the dried leaves from the plant cannabis sativa or the cannabis indica plant. Stronger forms of the drug include high potency strains known as sinsemilla, hashish, and extracts including hash oil, shatter, wax, and budder. Of the more than 500 chemicals in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, is responsible for many of the drug’s mind-altering effects. It’s this chemical that distorts how the mind perceives the world. In other words, it is what makes you high.

The Heart, the Brain and the lungs

Within a few minutes of inhaling Marijuana smoke a person's heart rate speeds up, the bronchial passages relax and become enlarged, and blood vessels in the eyes expand, making the eyes look red. While these and other effects seem harmless, they can take a toll on the body. The short term effects are, altered senses, sense of time, changes in mood, slow reaction time, problem with balance and coordination, bigger appetite, trouble thinking and solving problems, memory problems, hallucinations and delusions. Mixing marijuana with alcohol can cause increased heart rate and blood pressure. It can also cause further the slowing of the ability to think, solve problems, and react. Long term effects, increased heart rate a normal heart beats 70-80 beats a second may increase or double, respiratory problems can cause a chronic cough, increased risk for mental problems increased risk of problems for an unborn baby.

Smoking marijuana increases the risk for a heart attack. Research shows that smoking marijuana causes chronic bronchitis and marijuana smoke has been shown to injure the cell linings of the large airways, which explains why smoking marijuana leads to symptoms such as chronic cough, phlegm production, wheeze and acute bronchitis.

Regularly smoking marijuana increases the risk for respiratory cancer While people who smoke marijuana often inhale more deeply and hold the smoke in their lungs for a longer duration than is typical with cigarettes