Industrial Hemp, Marijuana, THC, and CBD | Everything I wanted to know and Did Not Dare Ask
Both Industrial Hemp and its more racy cousin, Marijuana, come from the Cannabis Sativa species.
This species of a single plant covers thousands of different varieties and strains, cultivated for different purposes.
For centuries, hemp has been intimately woven into human history, satisfying a wide variety of needs. Fiber, seeds, flowers and hemp stems have played an important role in historical events around the world.
Columbus, for example, could never have reached America without the strong ropes and hemp sails. And throughout history, education in China was made possible by the use of cheap hemp paper to spread information.
Finally, hemp has provided supplemental support to millions of people over the past 5000 years.
Cannabis, famously recognized as marijuana, has been adopted for its supplemental qualities for thousands of years. The historical remains around the world have revealed the importance of cannabis in medicine and spirituality
The first written references to cannabis are found in the work, Chinese Material Medical, written by Shen Nung around the year 2800 a. C., who documented 100 diseases that responded adequately to cannabis, including gout and rheumatism.
For thousands of years, cannabis was classified among the 50 essential plants used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Vedas, the sacred text of India, also listed cannabis as one of the five sacred plants
Ancient Egyptians, Persians and Greeks also used cannabis in various ways, including supplemental use and inducing spiritual elevation.
The hemp plant holds more than 60 different cannabinoids. Two of the main ones are CBD and THC. Cannabinoids interact with the body through cannabinoid receptors that are naturally integrated into the cell membranes of the whole body!
The History of Cannabis in the United States
The history of cannabis in the United States runs all the way back to the Founding Fathers. These revolutionaries cultivated the plant for industrial objects. For example, it is said that George Washington grew more than 100 hemp plants at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Cannabis is typically referred to as hemp when its fibers extracted from the stem are used to make clothes, paper, ropes and other non-THC uses.
Hemp plants have low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and, therefore, do not cause any hallucinogenic. During the seventeenth century, hemp was perceived as an important commercial crop. The oil of hemp seed was used to make soaps, paints and varnishes.
After over a century of field workers using the marijuana flower for recreational uses, and THC being regularly used in tonics and other supplemental products, the United States Congress passed The Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 that required certain drugs, including cannabis, be accurately labeled with contents. Often times, tonics listed secret ingredients and did not outright list cannabis as an ingredient.
These regulations largely failed to lessen the criticism surrounding the availability of cannabis.
In 1910 there came a number of new bills proposed to remove loopholes surrounding labeling and ensuring all cannabis manufacturers were being honest in labeling. These bills also aimed to limit the sale to pharmacies and require prescriptions to all users.
The Pure Food and Drug Act was updated in 1938 and renamed to the Federal Pure Food, Drug, and Cosmetics act, which further cemented regulation and restricting who could use cannabis. The FDA's enforcement was as follows:
"Goods found in violation of the law were subject to seizure and destruction at the expense of the manufacturer. That, combined with a legal requirement that all convictions be published (Notices of Judgment), proved to be important tools in the enforcement of the statute and had a deterrent effect upon would-be violators." Marijuana remains under this law defined as a "dangerous drug".
1911-1915 saw many laws passed in New York, Massachusetts, and Maine that restricted sales and prohibited refills to prevent habituation and prevented sales from doctors who were habituated themselves. This led to cannabis being added to the list of drugs that were known at the time to be habit forming.
Over the next two decades, Wyoming, Iowa, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arkansas, Nebraska, Louisiana, and Colorado followed with similar legislation.
Cannabis restriction reached it's most severe point in 1970, when the plant was outlawed for any use with the Controlled Substance Act.
Rolling Back Restrictions
In the United States, the prohibition of marijuana began to change in 1996, when California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis. Since then, many others have followed his example.
In 2012, Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize their recreational use. Today, most people in the United States support the use of cannabis as a medicine, for recreational use, or both. Surveys show that at least 4 out of 10 people have tried marijuana, while almost 60% support full legalization.
A survey conducted in 2013 found that most doctors - 76% - also approved the use of medical marijuana. Also, CNN correspondent medical chief and neurosurgeon, Sanjay Gupta, made a very publicized change in his position on marijuana, after producing his series divided into two parts "Weed", which was presented in 2014.
Today, medical cannabis is legal in 30 states of the United States, most allow limited use of medical marijuana under certain medical circumstances, although some limit its use only in oils or pills. Currently, eight states have legalized it for recreational use.
Full-Spectrum Cannabis (PCR) Extracts versus CBD Isolates
The public profile of the CBD has increased in recent years, and users use it to treat all types of conditions and disorders. It can be consumed in various ways, ranging from simply consuming orally to topical use and even vaporization. There are two main forms of CBD in the market, namely: CBD full spectrum and CBD isolated.
Among them, there are several key differences, which will be analyzed in this article. Consumption methods will also be analyzed since these can dramatically affect the effectiveness of the CBD. As we will see, the full spectrum CBD is more popular, and with good reason, but the isolate offers several benefits that could attract different CBD users.
The growing popularity of the CBD has led many users to ask questions about their methods of extraction and administration. The main question is which form offers the most effective range of medical benefits for users. The most frequent forms of CBD in the extract that are found in the stores are full spectrum CBD (extract of the whole plant), and pure CBD isolate. Most users prefer the first one. Given that as the years go by, the CBD's usefulness for medical purposes is increasingly accepted, new methods and improvements to administer it have continued to appear.
This has caused some concern among some users not only with what form of the CBD extracted is more effective or what could be the right dose for them, but also with knowing which method of complementation gives the user the maximum relief during the appropriate amount of time. Some of the most common methods include sublingual, topical or capsule application. Many people consider that vaporization of CBD is the best way to administer it in terms of its bioavailability and, as such, this has led to an increase in the demand for CBD isolate, a form of CBD that differs from the CBD extract of full spectrum because it only contains CBD and none of the other cannabinoids, terpenes or healthy fatty acids that are usually produced from the extraction process of the whole plant.
Marijuana (cannabis), with its complex chemical structure, contains more than 100 active cannabinoids in addition to CBD. It also contains terpenes that have anti-inflammatory properties and that are considered to increase the effectiveness of cannabinoids. Although not given the same importance as CBD when it comes to medical benefits, it has been found that some of these other cannabinoids also offer qualities that alleviate symptoms. For example CBN and CBG cannabinoids are found in most extracts of the full spectrum, and several studies have shown that both have anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and analgesic properties.
The extracts of the whole plant usually contain a carefully measured amount of the most potent cannabinoid in hemp, THC, although usually not in sufficient quantity to produce any psychological effect. In many countries, a percentage of THC has been set that, once exceeded, makes it illegal, so when it comes to making products that contain full spectrum CBD, it is crucial to know the amount of this cannabinoid. When all of them are present, that is, CBD and the other cannabinoids, as well as terpenes, there is what is known as the "entourage effect", the synergistic relationship between cannabinoids and terpenes that has been shown to increase the healing properties of each one of them.
However, the CBD isolate has something to offer CBD users compared to full spectrum extracts. The fact that full-spectrum extracts invariably contain low concentrations of THC means that some users prefer to go safely and limit themselves to CBD, for fear of a positive drug test or a mental disorder although it has been found that both cases are quite improbable.
THC is one of the cannabinoids that participates in the entourage effect that was previously indicated, so its inclusion is ideal in complementing CBD. A recent article on full-spectrum CBD demonstrates the importance of the inclusion of THC by stating: "in hemp, THC is a minor component and appears only in minuscule quantities of less than 0.3% by dry weight, as The US government demands for hemp products. THC mimics the action of anandamide, a neurotransmitter that occurs naturally in the body and binds to CB1 receptors in the endocannabinoid system found primarily in the brain.
The wide diversity of benefits contained in the full-spectrum CBD extracts means that some CBD sellers have stopped selling or reduced the promotion of CBD isolate, compared to the variety of the complete plant extract. The companies and the people who extract the CBD themselves are realizing that marijuana has, from the medicinal point of view, more to offer than CBD or THC alone, and that there are hardly any reasons, or there are not any, to not include everything that this super plant has to offer in the extraction process.
All this serves to underline the importance of analyzing the CBD extract to determine the various concentrations of the active ingredients. If your home CBD extract contains a high amount of THC, it may be illegal in your country and requires that you use a different extraction method or, more likely, look for a source of hemp with a lower concentration of THC.