Why Does Cannabis Get You “High” and Make You Feel Good?
You've probably heard of the commonly held myth about the chemical that is blamed (or credited) for the cannabis “high”: dopamine. Many media reports over the past few decades explain that THC induces a “flood of dopamine” that causes the pleasurable “high” cherished by recreational cannabis consumers.
Where did the media get this idea from? For more than four decades addiction scientists have embraced the unifying theory — the dopamine theory of addiction — that nearly all addictive substances and activities flood the limbic brain with dopamine.
Here’s how the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) explains it (emphasis mine):
THC, acting through cannabinoid receptors, also activates the brain’s reward system, which includes regions that govern the response to healthy pleasurable behaviors like sex and eating. Like most other drugs of abuse, THC stimulates neurons in the reward system to release the signaling chemical dopamine at levels higher than typically observed
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