Marijuana Leaf

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Information on Marijuana Leaf

Marijuana or Cannabis sativa is perhaps the most recognizable plant in the world. Pictures of the ubiquitous green marijuana leaf show up in the news media, textbooks and drug-prevention literature, and the leaf's shape is made into jewellery, put on bumper stickers and clothing and spray-painted on walls. The leaves are arranged palmately, radiating from a common center like the fingers of a hand spreading apart. Although most people know what the cannabis plant looks like, they may know very little about its horticulture.

Cannabis sativa is believed to be a native plant of India, where it possibly originated in a region just north of the Himalayan mountains. It is a herbaceous annual that can grow to a height of between 13 and 18 feet (4 to 5.4 meters). The plant has flowers that bloom from late-summer to mid-fall. Cannabis plants usually have one of two types of flowers, male or female, and some plants have both. Male flowers grow in elongated clusters along the leaves and turn yellow and die after blossoming. Female flowers grow in spike-like clusters and remain dark green for a month after blossoming, until the seed ripens. Hashish, which is more powerful than marijuana, is made from the resin of the cannabis flowers.

Marijuana plants contain more than 400 chemicals, 60 of which fit into a category called cannabinoids, according to the National Institutes of Health. THC is just one of these cannabinoids, but it is the chemical most often associated with the effects that marijuana has on the brain. Cannabis plants also contain choline, eugenol, guaicacol and piperidine. The concentration of THC and other cannabinoids varies depending on growing conditions, plant genetics and processing after harvest. You'll learn more about the potency of THC and the toxicity of marijuana later.

For the best marijuana pics from across the globe.

Hemp Products
The Cannabis sativa plant has many uses. Its stiff, fibrous stalk can be used to make lots of products, from food to ship sails. The stalk is comprised of two parts -- the hurd and the bast. The bast provides fibers that can be woven into many fabrics. These fibers (also called hemp) are woven to create canvas, which have been used to make ship sails for centuries.
The hurd provides pulp to make paper, oil to make paints and varnishes, and seed for food. Cannabis plants produce a high-protein, high-carbohydrate seed that is used in granola and cereals. Hemp oil and seed contain only trace amounts of psychoactive chemicals. Click here to learn more about hemp and its uses.

Owning hemp products, such as hemp rope or a hemp shirt, is legal. However, it is illegal to grow or possess marijuana in plant or drug form in the United States. Possession of the cannabis plant or marijuana is punishable by fines and possible jail sentences.

Potency
Whether marijuana is more potent today than it was in 30 or 40 years ago is at the center of much debate. The U.S. federal government has released information saying that the levels of potency have risen anywhere from 10 to 25 times since the 1960s. Is this a myth or reality?

Testing for Marijuana
An estimated 20 million workers are drug-tested annually in the United States at a cost of more than $1 billion. The body metabolizes THC into about five metabolites before passing it into the body's urine, so drug tests are designed to detect the metabolites instead of THC. Detectable amounts of these metabolites remain in the system for several days to several weeks following marijuana use, depending on the level of use.
The most common test for detecting marijuana or any drug is the immuno-assay. In this test, the urine is mixed with a solution containing an antibody specific to certain metabolites. The antibody is usually tagged with a fluorescent dye or radioactive substance. The amount of fluorescent light or radioactivity is measured to determine the concentration of metabolites in the sample.

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry may also be used to test for THC metabolites.

"There's no question that marijuana, today, is more potent than the marijuana in the 1960s. However, if you were to look at the average marijuana potency which is about 3.5 percent, it's been relatively stable for the last 20 years. Having said that, it's very important that what we have now is a wider range of potencies available than we had in the 1970s, in particular," Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Alan Leshner said in 1999 while testifying in front of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime.

Those who support the legalization of marijuana say that the data is skewed because testing was only performed on marijuana of specific geographic origins in the 1960s and 1970s, and therefore is not representative of marijuana potency overall. Officials obtained the samples from a type of Mexican marijuana that is known to contain low levels of THC -- 0.4 to 1 percent. When these levels are compared to other types of marijuana, it looks as if potency levels have risen in the last 30 years.

Typical THC levels, which determines potency, range from 0.3 to 4 percent. However, some specially grown plants can contain THC levels as high as 15 percent. Several factors are involved in determining the potency of a marijuana plant, including:

Growing climate and conditions
The time at which the plant is harvested affects the level of THC. Additionally, female varieties have higher levels of THC than male varieties. As a cannabis plant matures, its chemical composition changes. During early development, cannabidiolic acid is the most prevalent chemical. Later, cannabidiolic acid is converted to cannabidiol, which is later converted to THC when the plant reaches its floral maturation.

To determine the average potency levels of marijuana, researchers need to examine a cross section of cannabis plants, which wasn't done in the 1960s and 1970s. This makes it difficult to make accurate comparisons between the THC levels of that time period and the THC levels of today.