Cold open
Justin, then how the lock was found, in forty seconds
▶ Play this chapter The script
Every line as it is spoken in the film, in order.
I'm Justin Hartfield. I started Weedmaps in 2008, when nobody would put cannabis in a bank account. I spent fifteen years selling this plant. Then I found out I'd been getting the story wrong the whole time, and the real story is about you, not the plant.
People have burned this plant to get high for at least 2,500 years.
In 1964, two chemists in Israel finally pulled out the molecule that does it. THC.
It took until 1988 to find where it goes. A lock in your brain that THC fits.
But that lock is hundreds of millions of years older than the plant.
So it was built for something your own body makes. You've been high your entire life, and nobody's told you.
Your brain makes that key only when it needs it, then breaks it down in moments.
It took scientists four more years to find it. Let's see how long it takes you.
Sources
Every claim in this chapter with its grade: E established · M emerging (one or two studies, or animals only) · F framework.
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