When you can’t see the year….or the hour.
This year, due to the challenges posed by the risk of COVID-19 infections, many people are working from home, and setting schedules and resolving conflicts has impacted our lives in numerous unanticipated ways.
Schedules may have non-temporal effects as well. For example, schedules impact the use of cannabinoids as cannabis is classified as a Schedule I material by the Drug Enforcement Agency. This is attributed the high risk of abuse and addiction to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ 9-THC) as it is an agonist for cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1), which is distributed in the brain and the nervous system.
There is another cannabinoid receptor known as CB2 found in other organs, while Δ 9-THC is an agonist for this receptor it does not initiate an immune response, a principal role of this receptor. Thus, the lack of a historical classification on a different Schedule has greatly delayed the evaluation of cannabis and Δ 9-THC for other medical uses.
Hopefully, you have not been overcome by the scheduling issues resulting from the challenges of socially distancing. In an upcoming post, I will discuss cannabidiol (CBD) as an agonist for the immune system, a cannabinoid not impacted by Schedules.
Dr. Randal Stahl – Science Consultant
