If we can determine what other drugs do pharmalogically, one would assume the same princibles used in exploring other drugs could be applied to cannabis as well.
I think it's just the lack of anyone with the knowhow and brains to actually have the reason, time, motivation to delve into marijuanas mechanisms of action.
One must also take into account the nature of cannabinoids. THC is psychedelic and stimulating in nature. CBD is somewhat antipsychotic and more sedating in nature. The complex mixture of drugs in cannabis make its mechanism of action seriously complicated, where you dont just have say one drug like morphine exercising it's effects on the brain, but you have all these drugs from cannabis interacting and being influenced by each other as they effect the brain. One way to visualise this is to think what an IV dose of pure thc or pure cbd would feel like compared to smoking cannabis, alot different i'd bet my nuts on that.
Actually jamesmartin sorry mate you do propose a very true fact, but this is due to the complex mixture of drugs that induce the cannabis experience, and the fact that a number of these drugs are psychedelic compounds makes the true nature of weeds mechanism of action very very complex.
Just think, they cant work out exactly how LSD works yet, while we know it has a special relationship and action on the 5-HT receptors, we're far from claiming to understand how lsd works for that matter, the psychedelic experience is a seriously complicated process in the mind, the alteration of the minds natural awareness filter and other brain chemistry changes that are unique to psychedelic compounds.
So yeah i guess the point of my thread is to highlight how overly complex cannabis' whole mechanism of action is. Between it's subtle psychedelic qualities, it's antiemetic qualities, euphoric and soothing qualities and a whole lot more, it is a surprisingly complex drug in my opinion. Also what is weird is it's vast difference in effect between users who are new to cannabinoids and those who're very familiar with them, one could say they're too very different experiences, which would take more than just tolerance issues to explain.