Flowers, leaves and seeds of which plant are used to prepare a narcotics 'Marijuana' ?

Question

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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.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) 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'.  (c) 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.  (d) 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.

Concept: 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.

State PCS 2025 Q62 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q62 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer