• Question: Does tetrahydrocannabinol have a negative effect on your body other from Hallucinating?

    Asked by DJNiven to Angus, Catherine, Jenni, Melissa, Waqar on 21 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Angus Cook

      Angus Cook answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      This is not my field, but I’ll have a go (and invite better answers 🙂 )

      As with any drug (or chemical in general really) its effects are to change or influence some chemical reaction in the body. If it’s a medicinal drug we usually want this to happen in order to help correct some reaction that’s not working properly, but almost all chemicals will effect more than just the thing we want them to (these are called ‘side-effects’). A successful drug is one that manages to correct or treat the reaction that we want it to, while not presenting any major side effects.

      So I’d assume that tetrahydrocannabinol IS having effects on other parts of the body other than just causing hallucinations. Indeed Google tells me that refinements of tetrahydrocannabinol can be used to treat symptoms of multiple sclerosis. All drugs can be harmful though if used incorrectly. Take paracetamol, for example. If you stick to the recommended dose it can help relieve pain. If you take too much, however, it can seriously hurt you, and you may need to go to hospital.

      If the question you’re dancing around is ‘is it safe to smoke weed’ though, then that’s a different question. Again this is not my area, so I can’t give you a full answer, but the research I’ve heard about suggests that it’s roughly as bad for you as smoking cigarettes.

      It is, of course, currently illegal in the UK. Aside from any legal penalties this means that its trade is unregulated, which means that the contents of any drug is unregulated. So my main concern with any health effects would be from the processing and transport of the drug, because there’s no legal oversight to make sure that the supplier is actually supplying what they say they are.

    • Photo: Melissa Ladyman

      Melissa Ladyman answered on 23 Jun 2016:

      Scientifically it’s hard to study the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol because it is an illegal drug and scientists cannot ask people to take it and see what happens- it wouldn’t be fair because we know smoking damages your body, and with the evidence we do have, it looks like cannabis can be damaging to.

      The more worrying thing is the long term effects- because it’s hard to study, it’s hard to say with certainty that there are no long term effects. But, it’s like any drug- it alters your brain chemistry which can make you more likely to have accidents, or make decisions you would usually think are not sensible.

      As Angus said, there is some evidence that it could be used as a medicine but scientists want to make it safer to take as a medicine by taking the effective chemical out of the plant and put it into an injection or a tablet. That way we can make sure people get a safe, yet effective dose.

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