Dr. Christine Miller
Explains the Misconceptions of the Endocannabinoid System
Marijuana proponents exploit possible medical benefits of components of marijuana. They tell people to consume marijuana because they have receptors for cannabinoids, which are chemicals from the marijuana plant. What marijuana proponents don't mention is that we also have receptors for cocaine and other drugs too and that consuming those drugs is not necessarily healthy. They also don't tell people that our bodies make chemicals like anadymine for the endocannabinoid system and we don't need to consume marijuana to be healthy or to make anadymine. It's important to know THC, a cannabinoid, actually hijacks the reward system of the brain and can lead to the disease of addiction and other negative outcomes like mental illness. There appears to be some medical benefits from CBD but unfortunately, marijuana proponents exploit these claims too.
(AA) Hi, I'm Aubree Adams and I'm here with Dr. Christine Miller who is a neuroscientist and she's going to explain to us that we don't necessarily need to consume marijuana for our endocannabinoid system and how that system was named.
(CM) Yes, I think this is a great misconception that even physicians and scientists, some of them, don't understand and that is really phytocannabinoids were discovered before our endogenous cannabinoids were discovered and they got named cannabinoids because they belong to a particular family of chemicals that resemble each other in a certain way and that term was designated for that group of chemicals and for us, what happened for humans, is that the chemicals that bind to the receptor that THC and cannabidiol bind to.
AA … which is in marijuana
CM which is in marijuana, are a class, well the actual specific names are anandamide and then there's another one that's a little too long to pronounce and get into, but it's a family of chemicals that we have that bind to these receptors. The important thing to understand is that they got named endocannabinoids because they bound to these couple of receptors that THC and cannabidiol bind to, and that's not uncommon…. Any drug that interacts with our system binds to something, if it doesn't, if it doesn't interact with an enzyme, if it doesn't interact with a receptor or some sort of transporter, then it has no effect, it's not a drug, it's not a vitamin, it does nothing, it just passes through our system and maybe it's metabolized by the liver and that's the end of it. But the fact that they named anandamide an endocannabinoid, was purely by accident because phytocannabinoids were discovered first.
Now, in the case of something like cocaine, for example, we knew about the endogenous chemical, dopamine which binds to the transporter that cocaine binds to. We knew about dopamine before we knew about cocaine. We do not call dopamine the cocaine-transporter binding chemical, and as a result it is understood that cocaine isn't this endogenous substance, (it's) what we call a xenobiotic because it's foreign to our body and just as cocaine is foreign to our body, THC and cannabidiol are xenobiotics, they are foreign to our body, and so this accident of nomenclature, as I call it, has led to a great misunderstanding and unfortunately, marijuana proponents take advantage of it and have really misled people.
(AA) So when the marijuana proponents say you need to consume or smoke THC or CBD because we make that, that is not true, we make our own endocannabinioids, our anandamide, and that's the big misconception.
(CM) Yes. It is,… and the truth of the matter is what the "exocannabinoids" do which is what THC and cannabidiol are, is they hijack our system, so just like cocaine hijacks the dopamine regulation system, and the norepinephrine regulation system, they, THC and cannabidiol, really interfere of the natural process of some of the chemicals in our body that overlap (in binding) with some of the receptors that they bind to. Now I want to point out that anandamide binds to some different receptors that THC and cannabidiol don't bind to, and similarly, THC and cannabidiol bind to receptors that anandamide doesn't bind to. So this is part of the complex, you know,"mush" really of pharmacology, that there's nothing that's discrete, there's nothing that's definitive, and so what you're looking at is an accident of naming.
(AA) Wow. So that's so interesting, I hear you saying the THC hijacks the reward system of the brain, which can cause addiction and mental illness too.
(CM) Yes.
(AA) Unfortunately, just like other drugs.
(CM) Yes, although the way in which it causes mental illness is not clear. What is much more clear is why it leads to addiction, because like other drugs of abuse it depletes the dopamine reward system of the brain and it does so because, like other drugs of abuse, it stimulates dopamine release which is the reward neurochemical, and by overstimulating anything, it's pretty easy to understand, you exhaust that system and in so doing, you create a system where the brain needs ever-more powerful things or different substances to bind to something else that will heighten, you know, get the dopamine revved up again and this is what can lead to serial addictions. First it may be marijuana and then it's going to be something else because marijuana's not working for them anymore. That's not hard to understand, really, it's pretty straightforward.
(AA) Absolutely, and thank you for explaining that. We don't need to consume marijuana to be healthy.
(CM). Right. Yes.
(AA) It's the false narrative the marijuana proponents have claimed.
(CM) Absolutely.
(AA) So thank you very much
(CM) You're welcome.
(CM) Yes, I think this is a great misconception that even physicians and scientists, some of them, don't understand and that is really phytocannabinoids were discovered before our endogenous cannabinoids were discovered and they got named cannabinoids because they belong to a particular family of chemicals that resemble each other in a certain way and that term was designated for that group of chemicals and for us, what happened for humans, is that the chemicals that bind to the receptor that THC and cannabidiol bind to.
AA … which is in marijuana
CM which is in marijuana, are a class, well the actual specific names are anandamide and then there's another one that's a little too long to pronounce and get into, but it's a family of chemicals that we have that bind to these receptors. The important thing to understand is that they got named endocannabinoids because they bound to these couple of receptors that THC and cannabidiol bind to, and that's not uncommon…. Any drug that interacts with our system binds to something, if it doesn't, if it doesn't interact with an enzyme, if it doesn't interact with a receptor or some sort of transporter, then it has no effect, it's not a drug, it's not a vitamin, it does nothing, it just passes through our system and maybe it's metabolized by the liver and that's the end of it. But the fact that they named anandamide an endocannabinoid, was purely by accident because phytocannabinoids were discovered first.
Now, in the case of something like cocaine, for example, we knew about the endogenous chemical, dopamine which binds to the transporter that cocaine binds to. We knew about dopamine before we knew about cocaine. We do not call dopamine the cocaine-transporter binding chemical, and as a result it is understood that cocaine isn't this endogenous substance, (it's) what we call a xenobiotic because it's foreign to our body and just as cocaine is foreign to our body, THC and cannabidiol are xenobiotics, they are foreign to our body, and so this accident of nomenclature, as I call it, has led to a great misunderstanding and unfortunately, marijuana proponents take advantage of it and have really misled people.
(AA) So when the marijuana proponents say you need to consume or smoke THC or CBD because we make that, that is not true, we make our own endocannabinioids, our anandamide, and that's the big misconception.
(CM) Yes. It is,… and the truth of the matter is what the "exocannabinoids" do which is what THC and cannabidiol are, is they hijack our system, so just like cocaine hijacks the dopamine regulation system, and the norepinephrine regulation system, they, THC and cannabidiol, really interfere of the natural process of some of the chemicals in our body that overlap (in binding) with some of the receptors that they bind to. Now I want to point out that anandamide binds to some different receptors that THC and cannabidiol don't bind to, and similarly, THC and cannabidiol bind to receptors that anandamide doesn't bind to. So this is part of the complex, you know,"mush" really of pharmacology, that there's nothing that's discrete, there's nothing that's definitive, and so what you're looking at is an accident of naming.
(AA) Wow. So that's so interesting, I hear you saying the THC hijacks the reward system of the brain, which can cause addiction and mental illness too.
(CM) Yes.
(AA) Unfortunately, just like other drugs.
(CM) Yes, although the way in which it causes mental illness is not clear. What is much more clear is why it leads to addiction, because like other drugs of abuse it depletes the dopamine reward system of the brain and it does so because, like other drugs of abuse, it stimulates dopamine release which is the reward neurochemical, and by overstimulating anything, it's pretty easy to understand, you exhaust that system and in so doing, you create a system where the brain needs ever-more powerful things or different substances to bind to something else that will heighten, you know, get the dopamine revved up again and this is what can lead to serial addictions. First it may be marijuana and then it's going to be something else because marijuana's not working for them anymore. That's not hard to understand, really, it's pretty straightforward.
(AA) Absolutely, and thank you for explaining that. We don't need to consume marijuana to be healthy.
(CM). Right. Yes.
(AA) It's the false narrative the marijuana proponents have claimed.
(CM) Absolutely.
(AA) So thank you very much
(CM) You're welcome.