MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 62 of 100

Correct — option (1), Cannabis Sativa. Marijuana is the common name for the dried flowering tops, leaves and, as this question specifies, seeds of the Cannabis sativa plant, prepared and consumed for its psychoactive effect. The plant produces a distinctive family of compounds called cannabinoids in its resin-secreting glandular hairs (trichomes), which are most concentrated on the female flowering tops; the compound chiefly responsible for the intoxicating effect is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Different parts and preparations of the same plant give rise to different named products in India — bhang from the leaves, ganja from the dried flowering/fruiting tops, and charas or hashish from the resin itself — all ultimately sourced from Cannabis sativa (or its close relative Cannabis indica). Because the question names all three plant parts — flowers, leaves and seeds — together, it is pointing specifically at cannabis, since no other option's source plant supplies a comparable narcotic product from that combination of parts. This is why option (1) is the only botanically and pharmacologically correct answer.

• (2)Nicotiana tabacum — Nicotiana tabacum is the tobacco plant, and its leaves — not its flowers or seeds — are cured and processed into cigarettes, bidis, cigars and chewing tobacco. Its active principle is nicotine, an alkaloid stimulant that acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and produces dependence through an entirely different pharmacological pathway from cannabis's cannabinoids. Tobacco is legally cultivated and sold as a regulated but non-narcotic consumer product in India, whereas marijuana preparations from cannabis flowering tops and resin are controlled as narcotic drugs, so the two plants sit in different legal and chemical categories despite both being popularly called 'addictive'.
• (3)Opium Poppy — The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, yields its narcotic product from the milky latex exuded when the unripe seed capsule is scored — not from its flowers, leaves or ripe seeds. That latex, dried and processed, is opium, the source of morphine, codeine and semi-synthetic derivatives such as heroin, all belonging to the opiate/opioid class of drugs rather than cannabinoids. Poppy seeds themselves, once ripened and harvested for culinary use (khus-khus), contain negligible narcotic alkaloid content, which further separates this plant's narcotic economy from the flower-leaf-seed combination the question describes for marijuana.
• (4)Mentha Spicata — Mentha spicata is spearmint, a culinary and medicinal herb grown for the aromatic oil in its leaves, dominated by compounds such as carvone and limonene rather than any psychoactive alkaloid or cannabinoid. It is used in flavourings, chewing gums, teas and traditional remedies for digestive complaints, and has no narcotic classification or history of narcotic use anywhere, making it the most botanically unrelated of the three wrong options.

Cannabis sativa is a flowering plant in the family Cannabaceae whose glandular trichomes, concentrated on the female flowering tops, secrete a resin rich in cannabinoids — most notably the psychoactive delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and the non-intoxicating cannabidiol (CBD). Depending on which part of the plant is harvested and how it is processed, the same species yields several distinct products with different potencies: bhang, made from dried leaves and used in traditional and religious preparations in parts of India; ganja, from the dried flowering and fruiting tops, which is significantly more potent; and charas or hashish, the purified resin itself, the most concentrated of the three. Marijuana is the everyday English name generally applied to the dried leaf-and-flower preparation.

MPSC's science section regularly tests the correct botanical source of common narcotic and psychoactive substances, pairing a well-known drug name with a set of source-plant options that are chemically and legally distinct even though all are loosely associated with 'addiction' in common usage. The habit this rewards is tying each drug to both its specific plant part and its active compound class — cannabinoid, alkaloid opiate, or nicotine alkaloid — rather than treating all narcotic plants as interchangeable.

• Marijuana is prepared chiefly from the dried flowering tops and leaves of Cannabis sativa; seeds are also referenced in some descriptions of the plant's usable parts.
• The principal psychoactive compound in cannabis is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), produced in resin-secreting trichomes concentrated on the female flowers.
• Bhang (leaves), ganja (flowering/fruiting tops) and charas/hashish (resin) are all products of the same cannabis plant, differing in the part used and potency.
• Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) yields nicotine from its leaves, an addictive alkaloid stimulant unrelated to cannabinoids.
• Papaver somniferum (opium poppy) yields opium, morphine and codeine from the latex of its unripe seed capsule, not from its flowers or ripened seeds.

• Assuming any plant popularly called a 'narcotic source' is interchangeable with cannabis, rather than matching the specific plant part and active compound named in the question
• Overlooking that opium comes from the seed-pod latex of the poppy, not from its flowers, leaves or seeds — the same three parts the question attributes to marijuana
• Dismissing tobacco as 'too legal' to be a plausible distractor in a narcotics question, when nicotine is itself a serious addictive alkaloid

MPSC science questions on narcotics typically name a well-known drug product and ask for its source plant, with distractor plants chosen because they are also popularly linked to addiction or intoxication — tobacco, opium poppy — even though their active compounds and plant parts used differ entirely from the correct answer.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The compound chiefly responsible for the psychoactive effect of marijuana, obtained from Cannabis sativa, is :

  • (a)Nicotine
  • (b)Morphine
  • (c)Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)
  • (d)Caffeine

  Answer(c) Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — THC is the principal psychoactive cannabinoid secreted in the resin of cannabis flowering tops, responsible for marijuana's intoxicating effect.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Opium, and its derivatives such as morphine and codeine, are obtained from which part of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum ?

  • (a)Dried flowers
  • (b)Latex of the unripe seed capsule
  • (c)Roots
  • (d)Ripened seeds

  Answer(b) Latex of the unripe seed capsule — opium is the dried latex scored from the unripe seed pod of the poppy; ripened poppy seeds used in cooking contain negligible narcotic alkaloid.