How Cannabis gets you high and alters your perception
20 April is weed's unofficial holiday.
In honour of the special day, we collected our answers to all your cannabis questions. This is the science of 420.
More than half a century ago, as legend has it, a group of five high school students in San Rafael, California, began meeting after class at 4.20pm to smoke cannabis. One of them later went on to work with the Grateful Dead, sharing their story and ultimately popularising the number’s association with marijuana. Now, 20 April is recognised worldwide as weed’s unofficial holiday.
Whether you plan on celebrating today or are simply curious about how cannabis affects the body and mind, here are seven highlights from our Science of cannabis series. These stories explore cannabis’s history, how it gets us high and what the science really says about its medical potential (spoiler: it doesn’t treat anxiety).
