Ok . So if someone smokes cannabis or they ingest cannabis very rapidly gets into the bloodstream and the components that are psychoactive , get into the bloodstream and are immediately able to access neurons and other cells and start having these effects of parking at those endogenous cannabinoid receptors and impacting the signaling between neurons , which leads to the subjective effects of cannabis including THC and CBD . So let's talk about what those different subjective effects are .
And that is exerted largely through effects on CB one receptors in neurons of the spinal cord . So a broad array of effects are taking place regardless of what strain you take and what , whether or not you eat the cannabis or you smoke the cannabis . And the broad array of effects can be explained by the fact that that retrograde signaling can lead to activation or suppression of activity in various neurons .
So we tend to increase focus . This is something that's not often discussed about cannabis , but it can , especially the sativa varieties can increase people's level of focus to particular things that something they're watching or something they're doing or music allows them to narrow their sense of focus that's going to occur by activation of CB one receptors in the so called prefrontal cortex , which is just behind the forehead . And the prefrontal cortex acts as a strong modulator of so called limbic circuitry and other circuitry that is more stress oriented .
I'm not telling you what to do or what not to do , but there are no good predictors . In fact , if you look in the literature , it is not at all clear that people who have a heightened level of anxiety when they do not smoke cannabis will experience cannabis as less paranoia inducing or more relaxing . That's simply not the case .
If it's consumed over long periods of time , we'll talk about short , medium and long term consumption , occasional consumption going forward . So what I'd like you to take away from this component of the discussion is first of all the mechanism of action by which cannabis impacts the brain and body . But in particular , the brain is going to be through CB one receptors and those CB one receptors can lead to either an acceleration or a break on particular biological mechanisms .
