Your Brain Is Smoking Weed Even When You're Not, Says Science

A new study of science things has determined that the human brain naturally produces proteins that act like marijuana when binding with certain THC receptors in the brain.  That’s right – when you’re at work, in class, behind the wheel, or at your hearing for marijuana possession, your brain is off somewhere else, getting high as balls.  But it’s a useful discovery:

“Ideally, this development will lead to drugs that bind to and activate the THC receptor, but are devoid of the side effects that limit the usefulness of marijuana,” said [Science Person] Lakshmi A. Devi.

And it turns out other parts of our bodies are blazing as well.  More science about high persons, after the jump!

Scientists made their discovery by first extracting several small proteins, called peptides, from the brains of mice and determining their amino acid sequence. The extracted proteins were then compared with another peptide previously known to bind to, but not activate, the receptor (THC) affected by marijuana. Out of the extracted proteins, several not only bound to the brain’s THC receptors, but activated them as well.

Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, [continued,] “Last year, scientists found that our skin makes its own marijuana-like substance. Now, we see that our brain has been making proteins that act directly on the marijuana receptors in our head.”

He went on the explain that if you think about your brain and your skull and, like, your face, it’s all like, molecules, but… together, and like, if you think about a mouse’s brain and skull and face, it’s also molecules, but like, less molecules, but kind of the same you know?  And then if you think about a weed plant, it’s all like, mostly the same molecules, and it’s in our brains and our skin, where we have like, weed in our brains and skin because of the molecules, so it’s like, we are… weed.  Kind of.

Source: Science Daily