Doesn't even do anything for me. I've tried it on numerous occasions and not once gotten "high". I can't even tell you what high is other than from observing others. Eventually stopped cause I was just wasting my money.

This kind of touches on something that has always rubbed me the wrong way about medical marijuana

And don't get me wrong, if it helps you, or if you just enjoy it I'm all for your right to use it however you want

But you've got a headache or heart condition or whatever, your doctor wouldn't just say "yeah, you should go find some willow trees and chew on the bark of a couple different ones until you find one that works for you"

No, they'd tell you to go take X milligrams of aspirin, Y times a day, with or without food.

Because we know what chemicals in the willow bark are actually helping with your problem, we've isolated it (and improved upon it) and worked out specific dosage guidelines based on things like age and weight to treat certain issues.

But with medical marijuana, it's more of a "go ahead and figure out what works for you" situation. There's a lot of different strains of different potencies with different amounts of different active ingredients.

And sure, your doctor might be able to make some recommendations that you want a strain that's high in one cannabinoid but low in another to deal with your issue, and the people at the dispensary can help you through that as well.

But really, if we're going to treat it like the medicine it is, we should probably be dosing measured amounts of specific cannabinoids in purified forms in pills, tinctures, inhalers, vapes, etc.

And you probably shouldn't be smoking it. You can quibble over whether or not marijuana smoke is worse, less bad, or about the same as tobacco smoke health-wise, but I think we can all agree that inhaling smoke of any kind is probably bad for your lungs and you're better off not doing it. If nicotine could be used to treat some disease, I'm pretty sure your doctor wouldn't say to go smoke X cigarettes a day, they'd tell you to get some gum or a patch, or at least vape instead.

And with the state of marijuana laws, healthcare, and general affordability, it can be hard to even do the research needed to make that happen, let alone set up the kinds of infrastructure needed to make those more personalized cannabinoid medications, and of course all of the ways pharmaceutical companies would overcharge us for those meds, so again, I'm glad that what we have now is at least available to those who need it

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at how to do it better and treat these chemicals more like other medications are.

Others are answering about some of the science.

I want to point out that marijuana was a schedule I controlled substance in the United States for many decades, with no accepted medical use. During that time, it was exceedingly difficult to do research with cannabis, and licenses were very strictly controlled by the DEA. As a result, a lot of the research we want to have has simply not been there.

The situation is starting to turn around now, but it takes a long time to turn the ship around.

There are over a hunderd different types of cannabinoids.

They all have different effects on the unique brain chemisty of an individual but also influence the effects of eachother. (Entourage effect)

There are an uncountable amount of combinations here with an uncountable amount of specific effects.

It has to be said that all drugs carry real risks and cannabis is not harmless.

But with the info above i have always believed in its potential to one day synthesize fully personalized medicine. Other then many other drugs endocannabinoids are also created naturally in the mamal brain and are very important for mood regulation and cognitive function.

An interesting fact is while people would shudder by the idea of giving these substances to infants, breastmilk is actually a huge source of natural cannabinoids.

Everybody's brain is a little bit different and reactive differently to "substances". Cocaine, for instance, does nothing to me that I can describe as high though it will numb my gums if I rub on them.

There's also lots of different cultivars of weed, with varying amounts of certain compounds(cannabinoids), causing different expected effects. So, one kind might put me in the mood to tear an engine down while the one in the other bag makes me want to play rogue-likes on my phone, on the couch, with a bag of Doritos.

One thing I don’t see in other comments: if you’re vaccinated, the immune response will be still slow.

Immunity typically means a “memory trace” of a past immune response in form of a low number of cells that conserve the specific combinations of genetic material to produce an effective antibody. While persons with immunity may have detectable circulating antibody levels, those levels may be too low for an effective response. First, those memory cells need to divide and recruit more immune cells. That’s typically fast enough for fending off a new infection, because the infectious agent also works on the time scale of biological replication or reproduction.

As venoms can kill cells relatively fast, the ramping up of a response from immunity can be too slow, compared to the administration of a big dose of antibodies that can rapidly neutralize the toxin.

Generally the immune system doesn't work that way. The immune system generally targets living organisms actively attacking the body. Immunity derives from learning how to efficiently kill the organisms, often after a single encounter, and "remembering" that for as long as possible.

The defense against toxins is a little different. I don't have as much knowledge on that side, but generally the defense against these kinds of things is achieved when a cell is damaged, but not killed by the agent heals in such a way that it's less susceptible to that agent. Kind of like a callus forming on a part of the skin that gets repeatedly damaged. Also, the systems of the body that are responsible for clearing out toxins become somewhat more effective at getting rid of them after repeated exposure.

So, vaccination generally relies on training the more active defense by specialized cells that are specifically "designed" to be trained and "remember" how to attack the organism, but not as much a reaction by the cells that are being attacked by the microorganism. Whereas toxin defense is more a reaction by the affected cells themselves as well as increased efficiency of the body to filter it out, but the affected cells don't really "learn" how to protect themselves in quite the same way.

But this is all generalization. There are many types of venoms and some can be affected by the immune system, but in general it's a very different type of response that requires repeated exposure and recovery to develop.

Tim Friede intentionally exposed himself to snake venom. Antibodies in his blood could counter 13 different elapid venoms. So it's happened at least once.

Mithridatism

Depends on the venom.

Some shit just kills tissue, you can't build tolerance to that.

Others make your heart pop like you just used on cocaine, and those you may be able to build tolerance to.

Even if you just narrow down to snakes, there's still a lot of different kinds of venom

A person exposing himself to small amounts of venom over a long period to grant immunity is a trope in many movies and TV shows, but I don't know how well it would work in real life.

No they're wrong and you're wrong and I like the best things!

/s

Yeah you're probably right. 😁

Those are two separate biochemical mechanisms. Dopamine from a delicious meal and endorphins from spiciness. Some people enjoy one more than the other and that's fine -- you and your friends may be opposites in that regard. Many other people like the experiences together.

euphoric feeling that chili connoisseurs enjoy.

I will never get it. I feel like that's brute-forcing the euphoria you can get with a really well-cooked, flavorful meal.

I have a bunch of friends who would dump Sriracha and other spicy sauces on everything for a quick fix of spicy. Like, fried eggs... Bruh. Salt and pepper, some tomatoes, a little bit of ham or bacon maybe, much better tasting and doesn't make your pits stain. Learn to make a meal.

Inb4 the spicy sauce crew down votes me. 😅🌶️🔥

We basically already hack them with capsaicin. That molecule in "hot" chili peppers triggers heat receptor nerves, which causes the burning sensation. Your body doesn't know there's no real damage occurring so it dumps a bunch of endorphins to mitigate the pain, which brings the euphoric feeling that chili connoisseurs enjoy.

That's actually a medical problem, there's a condition where the receptors don't won't properly. People with it are at risk of injuring themselves and not even knowing it. Imagine, you're light-headed and passing out because you didn't realize you've already been bleeding for 10 mins. It's dangerous.

Pain signals are nature’s error channel.

Their existence is a benefit. They let animals know that they’re taking some form of damage and in a sense, how catastrophic that damage is. Keep in mind, for the rest of the animal kingdom that doesn’t have the benefit of modern medicine, a cut even if not immediately fatal, can lead to an infection. Which is why you see some animals nurse wounds, in order to speed recovery and decrease risk of infection or the wound deteoriating from further physical stress.

Now if you’re referring to stuff like chronic pain/illness there’s a discussion to be had about minimising pain and these receptor can indeed seem detrimental. However, if we had no receptors if you got a bad enough cut (on the back of your leg say, or somewhere out of sight). You wouldn’t know until you, hopefully, woke up in a hospital having passed out from blood loss. Else you just wouldn’t wake up.

Opiates.

Why would we want pain receptors to be less receptive to pain?

Nah, scientists don't bother with accounting for variability or changes.

🤦🏼

And pretty meaningless.

Any study will specify the specific population used in the study, the variability of that population, and how that variability was adjusted for.

Yep lol

You must be new here lol

A mod asked this?