DALLAS: Marijuana’s official designation as a Schedule 1 drug — something with “no accepted medical use” — means it is pretty tough to study. Yet numerous anecdotal reports, as well as some studies, have linked marijuana with several purported health benefits, from pain relief to helping with certain forms of epilepsy.
Still, experts say more rigorous scientific analyses are needed. Use of marijuana, a psychoactive drug, can come with risks, especially in people who may be prone to addiction or mental illness. And now, for the first time, researchers have found a link between daily decade long weed use and a difference in how the brain processes reward.
For years, researchers have suggested that such a link exists — and if it does, that it could play a powerful role in addiction. An important part of this line of thought is that addicts, far from amoral individuals incapable of making intelligent decisions, simply respond differently to drugs — neurologically, psychologically, physiologically — than people who are not addicted.
And this response is probably the result of many factors outside the person’s control, including genetics, behaviour, and environment…