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Marijuana's official designation as a Schedule 1 drug— something with "no accepted medical use"— means it is pretty tough to study.
While nearly half of the US has legalized the drug in some form, its national status has made comprehensive research into the drug's potential benefits (as well as its risks) has been all but impossible.
On November 8, three more states voted to make marijuana completely legal. California, Nevada, and Massachusetts all voted to support the legal use and sale of recreational marijuana. Here's what we know about how marijuana affects the brain and body:
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Marijuana can make us feel good.
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One of weed's active ingredients, called tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, interacts with our brain's reward system, the part that has been primed to respond to things that make us feel good, like eating and sex.
When overexcited by drugs, the reward system creates feelings of euphoria. This is also why some studies have suggested that excessive use can be a problem in some people: The more often you trigger that euphoria, the less you may feel for other rewarding experiences.
It can make your heart race.
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Within a few minutes of inhaling marijuana, your heart rate can increase by 20 to 50 beats a minute. This can last anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Weed may help relieve some types of pain ...
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Pot also contains cannabidiol, and this chemical — while not responsible for getting you high — is thought to be responsible for many of marijuana's therapeutic effects, from pain relief to a potential treatment for certain kinds of childhood epilepsy.
Still, while we have a lot of anecdotal reports from individual users who claim that marijuana has helped relieve their symptoms, few controlled scientific studies exist to support these claims, since the drug is still illegal in most of the US.
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