Why Cannabis Works
I smoke weed to reduce my back pain.
I take an edible to help me get to sleep.
I take a puff of a vape to calm my anxiety.
I use a tincture sublingually to help with my IBS.
I puff on a bowl of weed to stimulate my appetite so I can eat a full meal.
You’ve heard at least one of these, and probably even more throughout the years as cannabis has slowly moved from illicit, to medical, and finally fully recreational. And, sure, if cannabis was made legal initially for medical purposes, there must be some truth in it. But can one plant really have a therapeutic effect on so many different conditions, affecting various parts of the body, as some sort of natural panacea?
You may be surprised that the answer is a resounding yes.
To understand why cannabis works in so many ways, it’s important to first understand how it interacts with our body, and to understand that we have to start with our body’s endocannabinoid system.
The Endocannabinoid System
Hunger, joint pain, anxiety, and gastrointestinal distress affect different parts of the body, but they all have one thing in common: the endocannabinoid system (ECS, for short). In fact, your whole body, from your head down to your toes, is regulated by this neurological network. Not only is this system active in just about every function your body undertakes, but it essentially controls how other portions of your neuro-network function as well.
While this system is relatively complicated, it can be broken down into two essential segments responsible for reacting to your body’s endocannabinoids (the cannabinoids that your body creates): CB1 receptors and CB2 receptors.
CB1 Receptors
CB1 receptors are present primarily in your brain, but also are plentiful elsewhere in your central nervous system. Not only are these receptors present, but they’re actually one of the more prevalent receptors of their kind in the brain. While we won’t get into the nitty gritty of all the types of receptors and their functions, we will dive into the role that the CB1 receptors play and how they play it, because that’s what leads to the effects cannabis has on your brain.
To start, here’s a shortlist of some of the brain functions that CB1 receptors help regulate:
Hunger/appetite control
Learning and memory functions
Mood regulation
Pain response
Emotional Response
Body temperature regulation
Anxiety
Addiction
While this list seems pretty extensive, keep in mind that it’s not exhaustive. With these and even more functions being regulated by our CB1 receptors, it’s clear that they’re of great importance to our body. But how do they actually work? It all boils down to modulation of intracellular communication.
In the most basic sense, CB1 receptors can be thought of as a gate operated by a key. The body creates the keys needed to operate this gate in response to a wide range of stimuli, which are referred to as endocannabinoids. When these endocannabinoids bind with CB1 receptors they activate the gate, so to speak. Generally, this means that the CB1 receptor gate will close to inhibit the release of certain neurotransmitters, essentially turning down or reducing the communication between cells.
This isn’t the only way CB1 receptors inhibit neurotransmission, though. They can also activate certain proteins in the cell which make it less responsive to stimuli from other neurotransmitters. In this case, rather than the gate reducing what signals are sent out, they’re reducing what comes in. Between this mechanism of reducing response to neurotransmission, and the prior mechanism of limiting neurotransmitters, CB1 receptors can be understood to generally reduce neural activity in the brain.
An example of this would be when the body releases endocannabinoids in response to pain. When these endocannabinoids attach to your CB1 receptors, the result is decreased neurotransmission which reduces intensity of that pain.
Although CB1 receptors generally work as inhibitors, there are also cases in which they have the opposite effect. In certain brain and cellular functions, CB1 receptors respond to endocannabinoids by increasing the flow of neurotransmitters. For example, cannabinoids can interact with CB1 receptors in your hippocampus (responsible for memory formation) to increase neuroplasticity and aid in learning and acquiring new memories. Similarly, CB1 receptors may increase neural activity to stimulate hunger signals.
To summarize all of the above, CB1 receptors are powerful gates that regulate the way our brain sends signals and manage many of our core body functions that make us, well, function. Although these receptors are extremely important and highly prevalent in the brain, there are other receptors that are even more numerous in the human body. Enter the CB2 receptor.
CB2 Receptors
While CB1 receptors are key components of our central nervous system, CB2 receptors are found primarily in our immune system and peripheral tissues. While immune cells are the primary location for our CB2 receptors, there are also notable concentrations in vital organs such as the liver, spleen, kidneys, and intestines.
CB2 receptors have an effect on:
Immune cell function
Inflammation
Tissue Repair
Much like our CB1 receptors, CB2 receptors function like gates in response to endocannabinoids created by our body, but with a key difference. The main differentiating factor is that these receptors are not regulating our central nervous system, but rather our many types of immune cells. Instead of inhibiting neurotransmitters and affecting the way our brain operates, CB2 receptors operate by inhibiting immune cell response. This has many functions, but the most noticeable effect is the reduction of inflammation driven by our CB2 receptors reducing immune cell activity. Additionally, CB2 receptors can be activated by cannabinoids to influence immune cell movement to aid in tissue repair.
While there is not as long a list of easily apparent functions of our CB2 receptors compared to CB1, the most important thing to remember is that they operate via a similar mechanism and work to keep our bodies at a relative state of equilibrium.
Cannabis and Your ECS
So, with all of the background information above, it’s probably becoming clear why cannabis works the way it does. Long story short, the reason that cannabis can have so many different effects on your body is because of the way that it interacts with the CB1 and CB2 receptors. The different cannabinoids in cannabis (think THC, CBD, and more) are very similar in structure to the endocannabinoids that your body creates.
When these foreign keys are introduced to your body, they bind to the CB1 and CB2 receptors (because they fit there) and cause our receptors to act in a less-selective manner than normal. Instead of slightly modulating our system to maintain equilibrium, these external cannabinoids elicit a stronger, more noticeable response from our receptors. THC, the cannabinoid known for weed’s signature high, binds extremely well with our CB1 receptors. So well, in fact, that it binds better than our endocannabinoids do, resulting in the characteristic anxiety relief, pain reduction, lifted mood, sleepiness, and, of course, munchies.
THCs affinity for CB1 receptors is why it’s the molecule in the plant known for its psychoactive effects, and is thus the molecule most heavily regulated by the government. CBD and other plant molecules also bind with our CB1 receptors but not in such an effective way as THC, which is why their psychological effects are either muted or not noticeable at all.
Just as they bind with our CB1 receptors, THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids also bind with our CB2 receptors. There are a few differences, though. The most noticeable is that there are no psychological effects associated with this interaction, as the CB2 receptors do not generally affect our central nervous system. Instead, the use of cannabis and the introduction of these and other cannabinoids to our system can help enhance the therapeutic effects our CB2 receptors provide, such as reduction of inflammation. The other difference is that these cannabinoids don’t bind as well to our CB2 receptors as they do to CB1. This means that the effect they have on CB2 activity is not as drastic as the effect they have on CB1 receptors.
Some potential benefits of cannabis use include:
Anxiety reduction
Appetite stimulation
Inflammation reduction (of many different part of the body, from limbs to your gut and more)
Sedation
Spark Creativity
Antiseptic properties
Pain management
By consuming cannabis, many people have been able to treat and alleviate their disruptive symptoms with a natural medicine that has been used over hundreds of years. This is the reason that cannabis was legalized medially first. It provides a true benefit to many members of our community for its effects on their body-wide systems. It just so happens that the psychological side effects are also enjoyed by many.
Choosing Your Medicine
Of course, Cannabis is not a cure all, and can have varying degrees of effectiveness in every person. Just as some people respond better to aspirin over ibuprofen for pain management, cannabis should be used to treat our ailments with some thoughtful planning. Cannabis strains have an extremely wide variety of cannabinoids available in an even wider range of ratios. At the end of the day, one strain of cannabis will offer a very different experience than another.
We’ll be back to talk about the specific ways in which cannabis strains differ and what that means for their effects, but until then you should spend some time talking with your neighborhood budtender. They have a vast array of expertise that can help you find the right strain and product to treat your symptoms, and can point you in the direction you need to go.
Cannabis is not a one stop shop for all medical issues (obviously), but it can be a part of a larger treatment regimen and/or can help manage your various symptoms as a standalone medication. At the end of the day, this plant is able to offer much more than just a high, and its natural affinity to bind to receptors throughout our entire body should continue to be researched, explored and celebrated.