What we consume as well as when in life we are exposed to it play major roles in how our brains may be affected.
Hurd is the Ward-Coleman Chair of Translational Neuroscience and the director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
But while the biased application of law enforcement regarding marijuana has led to a trend toward legalization, the science is more unclear.
Because consumed cannabis interacts with the same receptors that endogenous cannabinoids connect to, the activation changes not only how we feel but how we think.
To understand possible negative impacts on the brain, researchers are looking at whether cannabis may in fact have addictive qualities.
However, Hurd noted, this disorder may be a “chicken or egg” situation.
When outside cannabis is introduced — such as when a mother smokes or consumes marijuana — what happens is “significant,” Hurd said.
In addition, while the combination of stress and cannabis appears to have a synergistic effect on these changes, the long-term effect of these changes has not yet been determined.
Still growing until we are in our early 20s, this area has shown structural changes in teens and young adults who have used cannabis — once again, resembling the changes seen in stressful conditions.
Another complicating factor is the variability of cannabis.
Unlike THC, CBD is not intoxicating nor does it induce chemical “rewards.” And while high doses of CBD appear to exacerbate anxiety, low doses have been shown to actually reduce it, she said.
Pointing out that “There is no medicine that doesn’t have side effects,” Hurd concluded that without more research, the idea of cannabis as a medicine remains complicated.