Cannabinoids, their mechanisms, and the company they keep
The lock:
When signals flood a listening cell, it brews
A lipid courier and sends the news
Backward across the gap: hold back. The pair -
Anandamide (named bliss) and 2-AG—share
The duty; enzymes clip each note when done.
The hemp’s whole pharmacy is a pun on one.
CBG:
One parent acid, pale and spare,
Feeds every gland; the genes declare
Which blade will carve it. Left alone
And warmed, it’s CBG, whose tone
Is mild: it nudges α-2 to ease
The eye’s slow pressure, then to freeze
MRSA in dishes; and in a mouse
With Huntington’s, props up each neuron’s house.
THCA:
Uncooked, the acid keeps its head:
No CB1 grip, no altered hour,
Yet inflammation, in the dish, has fled,
And rodents’ queasy bellies lose their power.
THC:
THC, the key that turns halfway,
Fits CB1 where the loud circuits play:
It hushes nerves that broadcast pain,
Revives the appetite’s refrain,
Quiets the gut’s rebellious heave,
And hands the sleepless a reprieve,
While dopamine’s low tide is nudged to rise
Until a flattened mood gets back its eyes.
CBD:
CBD won’t touch the front door’s key;
It leans on CB1’s flank, and so
Loosens THC’s grip: the head stays free
Of edges that a sharper dose would show.
It stalls the shears, so native brakes
Hold longer; through serotonin’s 1A it makes
Fear stand down; and Dravet’s storms, in trials, break
On doses that a child can take.
CBC:
CBC, the quiet third, declines
CB1 outright; along the lines
Of TRPA1 it soothes the sting,
And lets the seed-cells of neurons spring;
And mice in tests of sunk resolve
Swim longer; humans still must solve.
CBN:
CBN, from THC that age has worn,
Grips CB1 and CB2 with a lighter clutch;
Its name for easing sleep is widely borne,
Though trial proof has yet to say so much.
THCV:
THCV, sativa’s lean-bodied cousin,
Shuts CB1 at small doses, so the plate
Stays clean where THC would call a dozen
Snacks; type-2 patients saw their glucose rates
Improve in trial. Raise the dose, it turns
To agonist: a clear, brief peak that burns
Out early.
CBDV:
CBDV wears a propyl tail
Where CBD’s is pentyl; on the frail
TRPV1 channel it eases overdrive,
And slows DAGL’s mill, so calmer circuits arrive.
The entourage:
Myrcene, of mango rind and hop,
May ease the blood-brain barrier’s stop,
A claim still argued; less in doubt, the way
It slackens muscle at the end of day.
Pinene, from the forest floor,
Keeps acetylcholine’s score
From being clipped, so memory’s page
Stays legible when THC’s on stage.
Caryophyllene, from the peppercorn’s heat,
Steps onto CB2, and its feat
Is easing inflammation with no high:
A spice-rack key that immune cells try.
Limonene’s rind lends serotonin more to say,
While linalool, from lavender, lets GABA’s calm hold sway.
Cannflavins, pigments of the leaf,
Clamp prostaglandin, bringing relief:
In a dish, thirtyfold aspirin’s strength; the rest
Is human trials, waiting for the test.
The claim, kept honest
Call it the entourage: in ninety-eight
Mechoulam’s lab supplied the name; the weight
Of Russo’s later review said
Whole extracts sometimes outrun the single thread.
Some of it’s proven (CBD gentling THC’s hook);
Some rests on hope. The ledger keeps both, each in its own book.
Much of the mechanistic detail here comes from cell and animal studies; human evidence varies by compound.