Joyce Taus

Title: The Medical Properties of Marijuana
Purpose: To inform the audience of marijuana’s medicinal components and explain the medical benefits as well as the risks associated with the medication.
Thesis: The five main factors to understanding marijuana’s role in medicine are: 1) Overview of cannabis and its chemical actions in humans. 2) Symptoms Treated, 3) Specific modes of administration, 4) Benefits of the drug, and 5) Risks of the drug.

I. Introduction
A. Hook (Gain the audience’s attention): Marijuana’s unregulated use in treating medical conditions started around 100 B.C. It wasn’t until the late 1970’s when the “Hippie Movement” symbolized marijuana users as rebels against authorities. This naturally …show more content…

After this discovery, many insights to the plant began to unravel and it was soon introduced to the medical community. After a very time-consuming research process, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinoil (THC) was isolated from the Cannabis plant much like Morphine was isolated from The Poppy. The psychoactive properties of THC were easily recognized, however, because of the drug’s unique chemical structure, its mechanism of action was a mystery. More research was done. As it turns out, THC has a very surprising mechanism of action: THC-sensitive sites in the human brain! This means that THC and these receptors bind together like the last two pieces of a puzzle.
The process of THC being accepted by cannabinoid receptors is a TWO KEY SYSTEM: At each receptor terminal, there are 2 cannabinoid receptors. Let’s call them CB1 and CB2. CB1 is (in summary) the receptor that creates the “high” associated with the drug. But, CB2 is the receptor that will ultimately unleash THC’s medical benefits. The obstacle is this: CB2 is locked up inside of the cell. CB1 is sitting on the cell wall. This means that in order to reach CB2, we first have to unlock CB1. So, they go hand-in-hand, like a package deal. Right now, scientists are researching and trying to find a way to unlock CB2 without unlocking CB1, this would make it possible to feel the medical advantage of marijuana, without feeling that inebriating high. That research is a work in progress and