The use of Cannabis sativa, also known as marijuana, is believed to have dated back to thousands of years B.C. More than 200 decades later, it remains a popular recreational psychoactive substance that can be smoked through a water pipe. We report a case of marijuana smoking via a "bong" device, which has resulted in severe Pseudomonas aeruginosa necrotizing pneumonia treated with conservative medical therapy. This case highlights the importance of recognizing that life-threatening pneumonia can potentially be linked to marijuana and "bong" usage. Complicated cases should be considered for early surgical intervention.
A feature of human culture is that we can learn to consume chemical compounds, derived from natural plants or synthetic fabrication, for their psychoactive effects. These drugs change the mental state and/or the behavioral performance of an individual and can be instrumentalized for various purposes. After the emergence of a novel psychoactive substance (NPS) and a period of experimental consumption, personal and medical benefits and harm potential of the NPS can be estimated on evidence base. This may lead to a legal classification of the NPS, which may range from limited medical use, controlled availability up to a complete ban of the drug form publically accepted use. With these measures, however, a drug does not disappear, but frequently continues to be used, which eventually allows an even better estimate of the drug's properties. Thus, only in rare cases, there is a final verdict that is no more questioned. Instead, the view on a drug can change from tolerable to harmful but may also involve the new establishment of a desired medical application to a previously harmful drug. Here, we provide a summary review on a number of NPS for which the neuropharmacological evaluation has made important progress in recent years. They include mitragynine ("Kratom"), synthetic cannabinoids (e.g., "Spice"), dimethyltryptamine and novel serotonergic hallucinogens, the cathinones mephedrone and methylone, ketamine and novel dissociative drugs, γ-hydroxybutyrate, γ-butyrolactone, and 1,4-butanediol. This review shows not only emerging harm potentials but also some potential medical applications.
A field survey, based on a representative sample of children aged 12 to 16 years was carried out in three different areas of Malaysia. The data derived from the study have revealed that 10.5 per cent of them used drugs for non-medical reasons. Drug use was more common among boys (11.9 per cent) than girls (8.6 per cent). The highest frequency of drug was found in the youngest group--12-year-old children (13.5 per cent). The use of barbiturate and/or non-barbiturate sedatives (5.5 per cent) ranked first. This was followed in descending order by tranquillizers (4.5 per cent), simultants/amphetamines (3.9 per cent), heroin (3.6 per cent), morphine and/or opium (3.9 per cent), the hallucinogens (3.1 per cent) and cannabis (2.7 per cent).
Neuropsychiatric disorders (NPDs) exert a devastating impact on an individual's personal and social well-being, encompassing various conditions and brain anomalies that influence affect, cognition, and behavior. Because the pathophysiology of NPDs is multifactorial, the precise mechanisms underlying the development of such disorders remain unclear, representing a unique challenge in current neuropsychopharmacotherapy. Transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) type channels are a family of ligand-gated ion channels that mainly include sensory receptors that respond to thermal, mechanical and chemical stimuli. TRPV channels are abundantly present in dopaminergic neurons, thus playing a pivotal role in the modulation of the reward system and in pathophysiology of diseases such as stress, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, neurodegenerative disorders and substance abuse/addiction. Recent evidence has highlighted TRPV channels as potential targets for understanding modulation of the reward system and various forms of addiction (opioids, cocaine, amphetamines, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis). In this review, we discuss the distribution, physiological roles, ligands and therapeutic importance of TRPV channels with regard to NPDs and addiction biology.