5 Facts About the Cannabis Substance
There are three distinct plant species in the cannabis family; Sativa, Indica, and Ruderalis
These varieties may have come about through human selective breeding and are distinct enough to be counted as separate plants. However, they still fall under the same common name of “cannabis”. Contrary to popular belief, all three species are capable of producing the psychoactive drug THC. Additionally, all three are capable of producing hemp.
Some strains are just bred for one purpose or the other depending on the desired crop.
- Sativa grows tall and large with a higher CBD ratio.
- Indica is smaller and bushier carrying a higher THC ratio.
- Ruderalis is a small single stalk with the lowest THC count, low fiber quality but rich in CBD content.
For the heavy fiber plants you would need for industrial hemp products, you can breed out the THC to extremely low levels. The US government regulates hemp plants as those with less than 0.3% THC as a dried plant.
Theoretically, you could live off cannabis
We all learned in primary school that the building blocks of life are called amino acids. Honestly, that’s just about all any of us remember about them. The scientifically minded among you know that there are twenty standard amino acids.
Nine of these are called “the essential amino acids” because our bodies can create and synthesize them. The other eleven acids come from other compounds. However, these nine must come from outside sources; food.
These nine amino acids are absorbed into our bodies through all the foods we eat. Some foods have a few of the acids, other foods have the remainders. But, hemp seeds contain a large quantity of the nine essentials in addition to some of the other required fatty acids and elements. Sure, maybe you couldn’t technically live on hemp seeds. Yet, they make a great supplement to your daily nutrition.
Cannabis plants can soak up radiation spills!
Okay, I went with the hyperbolic and sensational grab on this cannabis fact. Your pot crop isn’t going to make Pripyat a safe neighborhood anytime soon. But, there has been some interesting finds around the old Chernobyl site and other locations sullied with toxic contaminants in the soil.
The process of phytoremediation is the natural cycle where the roots of plants leech toxic substances from the soil in which they are planted. These substances are converted into harmless gasses or compounds. The name derives from the Greek words for “plant” and “restoration of balance”. Phytoremediation is a promising alternative to current clean-up practices.
Even with toxins the hemp plant can’t convert to harmless, the leeching can still clean the soil. Additionally, it can concentrate the contaminants within the plant’s hardy stock.
Some people can be allergic to cannabis
Imagine you’re sitting around the campfire and someone is passing around some smoke when a person politely declines by saying, “no thanks, I’m allergic to marijuana.” After the giggles and likely joking subside, it turns out this is a very real condition. Some people can be allergic to cannabis. Depending on the severity, even being near the smoke is enough to cause them trouble.
Just like other plants populated by the bees and the birds, cannabis has pollen. You can not only be allergic, you can also develop an allergy. So while you may not have a bad reaction now, it is possible you form an allergic reaction later in life.
Women react to cannabis differently than men
This is not only a social reality, but a biological one as well. Studies have long shown that men are more likely to use marijuana than women. The prevailing thoughts on why this is true involve the male sex drive and its inherent increase in risk behaviors.
Women on the other hand are less likely to take the drug. However, their body reacts to it surprisingly different than men. The hormone estradiol appears to regulate the cannabinoids from the marijuana. It can create a much different feeling than is available in men.
This leads to a rise in the drug’s medicinal qualities. But, it also increases the overall tolerance. In the end, it leads to women becoming dependent on marijuana at much higher rates than men.
5 Facts About Cannabis’ Sustainment
It’s not your imagination. Weed is getting stronger
The United States Drug Enforcement Agency reports that the average THC level in seized marijuana from 1995 was around the 4% level. By 2015 that percentage rose to nearly 12%. The highly potent strains of marijuana circulating are collectively called “sinsemilla”. This means they are without seeds.
This official data is a few years old. As a result, the latest upsurge in the CBD market may have growers cultivating their crops differently because with the rise in THC. To prove this, the DEA has also reported a drop in the CBD content over the last ten years from 0.3% down to 0.15%.
This gives the THC-to-CBD ratio of 14:1 in 1995, now up to 80:1 in recent years. Good for the THC market, but terrible for the burgeoning CBD market.
Eat all you want, you won’t get high
There are gurus out there claiming the health benefits of a leafy green salad made from the marijuana plant. They aren’t wrong, a salad is much better for you than a fast food burger. But, you won’t be getting any of the side benefits long associated with the drug.
The marijuana plant has to go through a process called decarboxylation. This must take place before the THC acid and CBD acid turn into the much sought after THC and CBD oils. This chemical reaction occurs under heat where carbon chain is replaced with a hydrogen chain. It’s the opposite of the first step in photosynthesis.
So, the green leaf won’t get you high. However, once you heat it and cure it properly it can be ingested to get the desired response.
Smoke all you want, you won’t overdose… probably
Let’s be perfectly frank with one another, we all know drugs are bad for you overall. We all know inhaling smoke of any kind is never good for our lungs. But the idea of a drug overdose is nearly impossible when it comes to smoking marijuana.
The potency of the strain and the THC content need to be taken into account. However, even a dedicated smoker would have to consume more than is physically possible (through ordinary means) in the time required for the THC to reach poisonous levels.
The death would actually be from smoke inhalation or from carbon monoxide poisoning. However, once you make the declarative statement of “impossible”, some clown will come along and take up the challenge.
When the world ends, we’ll still have cannabis
About half way between mainland Norway and the north pole, on the island of Spitsbergen, conservationists and scientists built a concrete bunker inside a sandstone mountain to keep marijuana safe. Okay, maybe marijuana wasn’t their first thought. But, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was built to ensure the survival of various plant life in the event of local catastrophes, drought, crop disease and other events that could wipe out entire species of plants.
This important seed repository contains (among nearly one million other seed samples) 21,500 seeds of the cannabis genus. This makes the marijuana plant one of the crops that has a backup supply should anything ever come and wipe it all out.
From the far future to the far past
Now that we know cannabis will survive beyond any future crisis, we can cast our minds back to the ancient discovery of this rigorous plant. We have written records of the cannabis plant being used by humans as far back as 300BCE and archaeological evidence going back nearly as far as recorded human history.
Native to Central Asia and India, evidence of cannabis’ presence is shown in the daily life of Japanese villagers from 8000BCE, to China in 5000BCE, and the Korean peninsula around 3000BCE. These ancient cultures show varying degrees of cannabis use from multiple hemp products to the likely use of marijuana for recreational use.
Following the archaeological record, we can see the spread of cannabis from these ancient cultures around the globe through a very short period of time.
5 Facts About Cannabis in Society
The Bard of Avon, Shakespeare himself, MAY have enjoyed the “noted weed”
There is a lot of leaping around here to get to this conclusion, but we’re having a bit of fun here talking about cannabis. So, we’ll allow ourselves to indulge in some less than responsible journalism. Back in 2001, some testing of the pipes excavated from William Shakespeare’s gardens show traces of nicotine, cocaine, and… marijuana.
However, don’t yet rejoice in the knowledge that one of the world’s most celebrated poets was a marijuana smoker. Instead, keep in mind there is no evidence the pipes were his. Additionally, the trace evidence of cannabis was minimal, and the go-to verse of Sonnet 76 “Why write I still all one, ever the same, and keep invention in a noted weed” refers to his persistent writing on his beloved, not the magical plant. So yeah, MAYBE he partook, and we’ll take that.
Those pushing for moral superiority once advocated the use of cannabis
The American Temperance Movement started in the early 1800’s after seeing an increase of drunkenness as opposed to casual drinking. The start of the industrial revolution led to the need for sober workers. Also, the devastation of alcohol on the family was becoming more and more apparent.
So, in a push to moderate and then eventually call for the abstinence from alcohol, marijuana was suggested as an alternative due to its less provocative reactions in people. From the 1800’s through the failed 18th Amendment Prohibition Act in the 1920’s, the demon alcohol was shunned. Meanwhile, the less pervasive devil’s weed was tolerated as a less then savory substitute. However, at least people weren’t drinking alcohol (in public anyway).
America’s first marijuana arrest happened less than 100 years ago
Cannabis and the recreational use of marijuana has been around longer than the United States has been a country, much longer. But it wasn’t until the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937 when it became regulated. That’s right, not illegal, just regulated.
Going back as far as 1906 you can see the government struggling to get their hands on the revenue stream cannabis was bringing in and in 1937 they finally passed a law for the taxation of cannabis for medical prescription.
Not more than one day after the law was passed they arrested 57 year old Samuel Caldwell, a career criminal, known bootlegger, and recent marijuana dealer. They busted him for the sale of three joints as well as transporting four pounds over state lines from Kansas to where the drug deal took place… where else… in Colorado.
The father of the “War on Drugs” was once an unwitting airport drug mule
In June of 1971 United States President Richard Nixon declared drugs to be public enemy number one. With that statement, our war on drugs began and ramped up in the 1980’s to frenzied results only coming back to reality with the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010.
Although the story has been passed on orally and in fractured enough versions that it could turn out to be false, there is the legend of how Nixon carried Louis Armstrong’s pot around the Customs desk at Idlewild Airport in 1958.
Louis was just returning from an overseas gig and had three pounds of marijuana on him when Vice President Nixon approached him and proceeded to help carry Armstrong’s bags declaring the great jazz player didn’t need to go through customs.
Before e-Bay, before Amazon, there was cannabis on-line
The very first e-commerce deal is a tricky thing to nail down and every corner of the Internet wants to own their version of the story. So if you wipe away all the caveats of electronic transfer of funds and all the other specialties that make the first e-trade groceries, a Compact Disc or computer parts, the very first product where the arrangements for the sale were made on-line was marijuana.
In the early days of the ARPANet, students at MIT in Massachusetts received a message from students in the artificial intelligence lab at Stanford University in California and the two parties made arrangements to trade cash for marijuana. This constitutes the first on-line sale as far as we’re concerned, plus, it’s a lot more exciting than a Sting CD.