This may seem like a silly question, but the answer is genuinely fascinating. Most of us don’t really think about how weed gets us high, or how alcohol gets us drunk or whatever it is you put in your body for fun. Alcohol is a pretty boring explanation but weed has such a complex variety of effects on the body that I just had to find out why. How come it changes from strain to strain, from person to person. Why does the same strain that makes my friend super chatty and giggly make me want to fall asleep? Quite literally how does weed work? Well I’ve had a research so now I can pretty much tell you, although to fully go into every aspect of the inner workings of cannabis we would be here all day. So let’s have a quick look at how weed works.
The basic way that we think about weed is that we inhale, the THC goes into our bloodstream and whacks us in the brain making us feel high. The first part of that is definitely true, but it’s the stages between hitting the brain and getting high that we should be looking at. Why does it interact with our brains in such a bizarre and specific way? First of all let’s talk about neurons, those little buddies in our brains that process information. These cells have neurotransmitters so they can chat to each other and transfer information. These processes and transfers of incoming information tell us what to do with our bodies. They ensure that various functions are or aren’t happening at all times. These babies are affected by the chemical THC that has flowed up in our blood stream.
This is because of the cannabinoid receptors that we have in our brains, specially so that weed can get us high. Well that’s not really true, but it’s pretty cool that we have a thing in our brain that matches perfectly with the chemicals in weed. These receptors react to the THC and allow it to mimic or block these information transmissions, which is why stuff we can normally do so easily might go a little bit wobbly.
Next let’s have a look at these cannabinoid receptors and what they are all about. In order to properly talk about how weed affects the brain we need to talk about a cheeky little fella called anandamide. This, amazingly, is a cannabinoid that is made by our bodies and this is what THC mimics to get into our brains. So basically our meat brain goes ‘Oh guys it’s just anandamide, hop on bud’ when really it’s THC. The neuron is activated and this is where our bodily functions might start going a little bit wonky. The sorts of things that are usually affected are problem solving, coordination, and short term memory.
The brain is a big electric jelly network that controls the whole show. It’s a bit weird to think too hard about the brain because it’s thinking about itself and that makes me feel strange. However, let’s have a look at what happens once THC has dressed up as anandamide and snuck it’s way into our neurons. From here THC can alter the functions of different parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, which is a word I always enjoy. This is why sometimes when we smoke, time seems to not work how it normally does. That is why you’ll go to put a snack in the microwave and discover that past you had already put one in there.
It can also screw with your basal ganglia, brain words are fun. This is why you suddenly get stuff like couch lock, sand arms, or stupid legs. So when you smoke weed and it pretends to be a cannabinoid that lives in your body it basically hitchhikes around your brain just messing with stuff.
This makes smoking weed sound pretty negative, so let’s look at the pleasure aspects of brain alteration. Weed also messes with your dopamine release and your reward centres. This affects parts of your brain that give you little pops of feel good when you do something nice. Since the amount of dopamine released is higher when you’re smoking weed, certain activities are going to feel absolutely amazing. Have you ever sat down high with something deliciously gross like a macaroni pie, sorry if you’re not Scottish and don’t know what I’m on about. The combination of textures, flavours, and all the fat and oil heavy cheese that might normally be off putting suddenly becomes an orgasmic cacophony that makes you go a bit odd. That might just be me but you get my point. The brain recognises a thing it likes doing and the enhanced sensory experience caused by the alteration to the pleasure centre of your brain makes things like eating, sex, soft textures etc about a thousand times better than normal. Unfortunately, this is why cannabis can become mentally addictive for some.
Hold on though, how do different strains have different effects if it’s just THC mimicking another cannabinoid? So THC mimicking anandamide is very simplified, as that is only one of the compounds found in weed. The combination of these compounds is different in each strain and will cling to different receptors in the brain. This also links to why strains can affect people differently. It’s all about the chemistry, whether that’s in the plants or in our bodies. There are a few factors that might cause you to feel a high differently from another person. If you are of a different gender, different biochemistry, different levels of health. Just like with alcohol how your body functions will dictate how weed affects you.
This is why it is so important to find a strain that works well for you, even if it’s not the same thing your friends smoke. What makes one person perky makes another paranoid, we aren’t all built the same.
Well I hope you now have a slightly better understanding of how you’re getting high and what you can do to improve your experience.
Written by Tasha Porritt
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