Fig 1 Marijuana cannabinoids
When marijuana is smoked, these compounds find their way into the smokers’ body system where they cause a series of disruptive effects among various organs including the pulmonary, respiratory and the central nervous systems.1 Even though there are minimal reported mortality cases arising from marijuana use among consumers, its increased illegal trading in black markets and consumption patterns precipitate concerns on its potential hazardous effects on human health especially because they are precursors for cancer development, and efforts made towards its abuse cessation has been made by a push to legalize its use, basically for medicinal concerns. Nonetheless, marijuana smoking has been recognized as a risk factor for a pulmonary function and respiratory complications by a number of systematic and epidemiological studies.6 The motivation behind this review is to examine the apparent harm and psychotic impacts arising from repeated use of this psychoactive drug substance and the scientific efforts advanced towards its cessation from a review of selected published articles from different journals and databases. The emerging chemicals from cannabis cigarette smoke and their cancer potency is the primary focus of this work. On the other hand, scientific efforts taken in order to reduce marijuana toxicity have also been evaluated. Moreover, marijuana legalization for medicinal purposes as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, neuroprotective and anticonvulsant characteristics has grown in a number of states and nations in the world upon the assumption that it contains chemical compounds that have potency toward treating a number of illness and symptoms regardless of associated risks.7 Therefore, the application of marijuana as a pharmaceutical drug has also been reviewed in this study especially its use in the management of the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARs-Cov-2).8, 9 These research findings may direct further research in promoting methods that can enhance cessation and control marijuana use and thereby promoting a healthy livelihood of the human race. The literature considered for this study is only published in English language. After the search on the multidisciplinary databases and google scholar, a number of published reports on the subjects of interest especially on marijuana smoking, toxicity and carcinogenicity were the main search terms.
From the surveyed literature, it can be predicted that in the pharmaceutical industry, cannabis is a potential drug agent in pain relieving medications that are required by cancer patients under chemotherapy, neurological issues and even HIV and AIDS patients to aid in appetite restoration. In line with these characteristics, cannabis is likely to offer more benefits in the medical field if clear handling rules and control measures are outlined by more countries across the world to provide room for extensive scientific research based on its medical benefits.