pharmacologically active plant
Characterizing the clinical pharmacology of the constituents in any pharmacologically active plant is often complicated, particularly when the plant is smoked or eaten more or less in its natural form. Marijuana is not unusual in this respect. Cannabis sativa is a very adaptive plant, so its characteristics are even more variable than most plants (Graham 1976; Mechoulam 1973). Some of the seeming inconsistency or uncertainty in scientific reports describing the clinical pharmacology of marijuana results from the inherently variable potency of the plant material used in research studies. Inadequate control over drug dose when researching the effects of smoked and oral marijuana or feminized marijuana seeds, together with the use of research subjects who vary greatly in their past experience with marijuana, contribute differing accounts of what marijuana does or does not do.