Un interesante artículo de Jerome Groopman que toca el tema de evolución y mariguana en The New York Review of Books, Marijuana: The High and the Low.

…But what I found most fascinating was that we have a natural or “endogenous” cannabinoid system. In 1988, researchers identified a specific docking site, or receptor, on the surface of cells in the brain that bound THC. This first receptor was termed cannabinoid receptor 1, or CB1.4 Five years later, a second receptor for cannabinoids, CB2, was found.5 This latter docking protein was less plentiful in the central nervous system but richly present on white blood cells. Again, it was Raphael Mechoulam who discovered the first endogenous cannabinoid, a fatty acid in the brain, which he termed “anandamide.” (The name is derived from the Sanskrit word ananda, which means “bliss.”) When anandamide attached to CB1 it triggered a cascade of biochemical changes within our neurons.

Other endogenous cannabinoids were later identified. This makes evolutionary sense, since the CB1 and CB2 receptors would not be present on our cells if we did not normally make molecules to dock on them. The physiological ramifications of endogenous cannabinoids appeared quite broad; their most impressive effects were related to perception of and response to pain.

Cannabis is one of the oldest psychotropic drugs in continuous use. Archaeologists have discovered it in digs in Asia that date to the Neolithic period, around 4000 BCE. The most common species of the plant is Cannabis sativa, found in both tropical and temperate climates. Marijuana is a Mexican term that first referred to cheap tobacco and now denotes the dried leaves and flowers of the hemp plant. Hashish is Arabic for Indian hemp and refers to its viscous resin. An emperor of China, Shen Nung, also the discoverer of tea and ephedrine, is held to be among the first to report on therapeutic uses of cannabis in a medicinal compendium that dates to 2737 BCE. In 1839, William O’Shaughnessy, a British doctor working in India, published a paper on cannabis as an analgesic and appetite stimulant that also tempered nausea, relaxed muscles, and might ameliorate epileptic seizures. His observations led to widespread medical use of cannabis in the United Kingdom; it was prescribed to Queen Victoria for relief of menstrual discomfort.