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Is marijuana addictive? You can bet your heroin on that!
“Is marijuana addictive?” seems to be the ultimate question for many people. In fact, when discussing addiction, it is rare that the addiction potential for marijuana doesn’t come up. Some basic points about marijuana: The active ingredient in marijuana, THC, binds to cannabinoid receptors in the brain (CB1 and CB2). Since it is a partial…
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Obesity, drug addiction, and dopamine
Eating junk-food can be addictive, and apparently, it causes brain changes that look eerily similar to drug addiction. That’s the message not only from the rapidly fattening waistlines of Americans everywhere, but also from the Johnson and Kenny labs at the Scripps Institute. Food and drug addiction The idea that obesity is caused by a…
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Nicotine addiction and genetics – It’s the little things that matter in smoking addiction
We’ve known for a while that genes play a role in addiction in general and that nicotine is addictive at least in part because it activates receptors for a chemical called Acetylcholine (ACh) that are found all over the brain and body. Nevertheless, finding the specific mechanism for the genetic predisposition has been difficult. Some…