Why did the human body develop the ability to engage with cannabinoids? I’ve heard people postulating that we’re practically build to get high, as a justification for cannabis usage, but I can’t really believe it would be the main cause for this specific natural selection. I mean; from a darwinian perspective it doesn’t really make sense – how would getting high be survival of the fittest? Also, there exist other cannabinoids than THC, so what is the effect of these, and how present are they in our daily lives and what are the effect of these?
In: 170
In biology, we don’t like to think about “the original purpose” of any molecule. This is because it biases our way of thinking and slows down discovery. I like using gravity to illustrate this point. Gravity’s purpose isn’t to make us stick to Earth, rather gravity is just there and one of its virtues is making us stick to Earth. The second way of thinking opens our mind more for other ways in which gravity can act.
In the same way, cannabinoid receptors shouldn’t, scientifically, have an original purpose. They’re likely used for so many things in the body, and one of these things is to bind to cannabinoids.
Latest Answers