On top of making life difficult for people of color and making cartels and crooks filthy rich, marijuana prohibition has stymied scientific research.
This has had long-term negative consequences we’re still struggling to overcome. We’re unsure of the long-term effects of THC on the body and the brain. We don’t have a solid idea how to test for marijuana intoxication. Worse of all, worldwide marijuana prohibition interrupted vital work dating from the 1970s and 1980s where researchers examined marijuana’s value as a love aid.
Luckily for humanity, researchers from several European research universities recently dug out these dusty, presumably hairy tomes. And as Business Insider first reported, they found that marijuana was more valuable for the unlucky in love than Spanish fly (and less disgusting, deadly and borderline rape-y).
In “roughly half the reported cases,” people who used cannabis prior to getting down reported “aphrodisiac effects,” the study found, creating arousal when before there was only a cold emptiness. And 70 percent of pre-sex stoners said they experienced “enhancement in pleasure and satisfaction.”
But only if they didn’t smoke too much.
For instance, one study from 1974 found that a single joint was arousing, but more than that made “sexual satisfaction more challenging.”
Or maybe it’s not smoking enough?
A sizable 1970 study into the subject conducted by Erich Goode—come on; did he have a prior career as a pool boy?—found that 50 joints over a six-month period was good, but a joint-a-week habit led to a “dramatic decrease in sexually enhancing effects,” according to reports. (It doesn’t appear that they consulted “Mr. X,” the pseudonym famous astronomer Carl Sagan used when extolling marijuana’s many benefits, including its value as a sensual aid.)
How valuable is any of this research today? The short answer is, not very.
These are the days of powerful and potent cannabis, as well as detailed dosage reports on edibles labels and dispensary menus. We don’t have a clear idea of which strains the study subjects used or how much THC they ingested—not that they would have known, either, but it bears mentioning that marijuana back in the 1970s was mostly mellow sativa. In other words, the sexytime weed of the 1970s is not the weed we can easily access today.
Nonetheless, the modern-day researchers reviewing this material thought enough of the prior science done on the subject to suggest marijuana could be a treatment for sexual dysfunction.
Now that we’ve isolated THC and identified the endocannabinoid system, and can say with some certainty which cannabinoids activate what activity in the brain, marijuana could be “a potential therapeutic target for sexual dysfunctions, given the partial efficacy of current pharmacological treatment,” the researchers wrote.
Some marijuana entrepreneurs have already hit upon this phenomenon. One particular strain of sex-enhancing marijuana—called Sexpot—has been sold in California dispensaries for almost two years. It’s aimed at women, and it happens to be low in THC, akin to the strains seen a generation ago. Other cannabis businesspeople aren’t sure if this one strain is any better or worse for sexual enhancement than any others, but agree that many medical-marijuana seekers aren’t after pain relief or an appetite boost. They want better sex, dammit! (Maybe that’s why George Michael smoked 25 joints a day, not self-destruction or stress.)
It’s also worth mentioning that there are just as many anecdotes dismissing marijuana as a mood-killer as there are romance novel-worthy tales. We’re not sure where this line of research ranks on the list of priorities when it comes to advancing cannabis science, but it’s sure to garner the most volunteers for test subjects.
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