BY C.M. WATTS Maybe I’ve watched too much Star Trek (just kidding, not a thing), but medicating while traveling through space has always been a dream of mine. Maybe after I smoke I even play my Ressikan Flute. The image is perfectly peaceful. Yet a new study posted by Science Alert , may have just dashed my dreams of smoking weed in space. According to recent studies, it’s possible the cosmic radiation zooming through open space from the sun may be enough to decrease the effects of marijuana. While on Earth, the magnetic field blocks the majority of these cosmic rays. Yet, it turns out that the these fast moving particles actually effect the endocannanbinoid receptors in the hypocampus – the parts of the brain of that marijuana mimics and boosts when smoking marijuana. It’s this reason that sciences believe that if you were to smoke weed in space, you would find little to no effect from the THC found in marijuana. The study’s purpose was to continue looking into how to keep humans safe during space travel. Especially as companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX are planning passenger trips to Mars , where they hope to establish a colony. According to the company, the trip would take at least 115 days, using the new rocket technology currently they are developing. While that doesn’t see like too long of a trip (for a space that is), non-astronaut passengers would need a way to occupy their time, and using marijuana could be a nice way to sit back and relax on an elongated trip. It may seem funny for people to be debating weed use in space, especially since we haven’t even legalized it for use on planet Earth yet. But Neuroscientist and study team member Ivan Soltesz from Stanford University doesn’t seem to think the question is that farfetched. “You laugh now, but on a long trip to Mars, recreational and medical marijuana use will likely become a highly controversial issue, so I stand by the utmost importance of this study,” he told ScienceBlog . If you’re interested in learning more about the topic, check out Science Alert’s original post .
