Cannabis education and gatherings in 50+ cities and growing! Our guest today is Aliza Sherman, CEO of Ellementa, a global women’s cannabis wellness network. What’s the driving force needed to bring cannabis to the mainstream? How do you determine and reach your target audience? Should Aliza start a “Moms who Love Fortnite” business? All and more discussed in this episode.
E079 Predictions on the Future of Cannabis
Will the pharmaceutical industry take over the CBD infused products market? Could CBG could be the next CBD-like cannabinoid consumers look for? Who in Oregon is leading innovation in the “craft hemp” category? All discussed with our guest Shango Los, consultant, speaker and podcast host with many years experience in cannabis, business and the science of it all.
Shango Los YouTube channel and podcast Shaping Fire and Taming THC paper link with Dr. Ethan Russo discussed in episode.
E078 Is your CBD Business in Jeopardy?
The 2018 Farm Bill has passed, Hemp CBD is now legal, but the future results may surprise you! Our guest today is David Heldreth, Founder of Panacea Plant Sciences and Content Manager for True Terpenes. We discuss negatives of the Farm Bill and how SMBs might be pushed out in preference for the pharmaceutical model. We also discuss a cannabis growth additive David has developed to increase terpene and cannabinoid potency by engaging defense mechanisms in the cannabis plant.
What can we do to prevent the Farm Bill outcome discussed in episode? The Department of Human and Health Services (HHS) is the cabinet department that oversees the FDA. Contact HHS secretary (Alex M. Azar II) who can call for the hearings and other actions needed discussed in episode. LINK for the secretary of HHS
E075 Science of Cannabis Series_10
Back with Emma Chasen from Eminent Consulting for another Science of Cannabis podcast. This episode focuses on the 2018 Farm Bill, how you can tell the difference between indoor and outdoor cannabis, sales techniques for budtenders and how cultured high-purity cannabinoids from yeast could disrupt the industry!
E071 Author & Producer David Bienenstock
This episode focuses on the double edged sword of legalization, hosting a podcast on the history of cannabis and many more cultural topics. David is the author of How to Smoke Pot (Properly) and co-creator of the podcast Great Moments in Weed History. Previously, he served as Head of Content at HIGH TIMES and was a columnist and video producer with VICE Media. David has more experience in cannabis than most and we discuss his perspective after serving the plant for over 15 years.
LINK to recommended book Smoke Signals
E069 Brave New Weed author Joe Dolce
This episode focuses on stories from cannabis prohibition and how the new legalized market is changing culture with Joe Dolce, author of the book Brave New Weed. Joe’s world was changed when his brother reintroduced him to cannabis. It led him on a path of discovery that resulted in publishing a book. Listen in as we discuss Joe’s experience writing the book and discovery of the evolving cannabis industry.
LINKS to Brave New Weed Book, Brave New Weed Podcast and Medical Cannabis Mentor
E067 Army Veteran Develops Cannabis Protocol for Brain Injury
This episode focuses on international export, cannabis for traumatic brain injury and getting veterans access to cannabis with Todd Scattini, CEO of Harvest 360 and on the Board of Veterans Cannabis Project. We discuss Todd’s time in the army, over 25 years of service and how a hemp project in the Middle East during service opened his eyes to the potential uses of cannabis! We also cover a new cannabis protocol for traumatic brain injury that Todd and his team are working on.
E064 University pursues Cannabis Research
Intriguing conversation with Dr. Charles Pollack from The Lambert Center at Thomas Jefferson University. They are pushing the boundaries of cannabis science and research in the university setting. We discuss western medicine’s approach to cannabis, your body’s endocannabinoid system and new studies on the medical applications for cannabis.
E063 Science of Cannabis Series_09
Another great conversation with Emma Chasen on the Science of Cannabis. We discuss some new topics and go deeper on previously discussed topics like industrial hemp versus craft hemp, what CBD-A could do for people and why THC-A could be an amazing add on to CBD for consumers wanting the medicinal benefits without getting high.
E062 Cannabis Art with a Purpose
Talk with Ty Forto, Founder of Cannabiscapes, a company using cannabis art to help change the cannabis conversation. We get into Ty’s past experience working at BioTrack, how he started Cannabiscapes and the purpose behind his vision.
E055 Accelerating Women Owned Cannabis Startups
Great talk with Amy Margolis, the Founder of The Initiative, an accelerator program, business bootcamp and funding resource for female founded cannabis businesses. Amy has been practicing cannabis law for nearly 2 decades. Getting her start in criminal defense on cannabis cases, Amy is now launching The Initiative and a cannabis friendly social/ business space in Portland, Oregon called The Commune.
E054 PhD Neuroscientist & Endocannabinoid System
Amazing talk with Dr. Michele Ross, a PhD Neuroscientist, on the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) in our own bodies. We discuss why Dr. Ross became interested in cannabis, her new book, the research she has been doing on the ECS along with new findings and the difference between phyto-cannabinoids and endogenous-cannabinoids.
LINK to her new book, “Vitamin Weed: A 4-Step Plan to Prevent & Reverse Endocannabinoid Deficiency”
E052 Global Cannabis Community for Women
Tokeativity is a world-wide cannabis community for women. Based in Portland, Oregon, Tokeativity was created by Lisa Snyder and Samantha Montanaro in 2016 with an intention to nurture a safe space for women to connect, learn and create. We discuss how Lisa and Sam launched the first events, grew their network and trends they see developing in the cannabis industry!
If you sign up for Tokeativity USE CODE “periodicpodcast” for 50% off
E051 Cannabis Science 101: From Novice to Pro 2of2
Part 2 of our conversation with Emma Chasen on the Science of Cannabis. Listen to Part 1 first if you haven’t yet (Episode E050). In Part 2 we discuss product selection for different ailments, dosing, what questions to ask your budtender and answer some questions submitted by listeners.
Visit this page for more Science of Cannabis Episodes www.periodiceffects.com/101
Episode Transcription:
Wayne: So there's a lot of different cannabis products - you know, you can smoke it, drink it, eat it, put it on your skin patch. Like how does a new time, first time consumers start with selecting a product and making that decision of which one to use? And I'd like to get the dosing after that, but just starting like what, what product should they pick, you know, how do they decide that?
Emma Chasen, Guest: Yeah, I would really encourage them to make that choice based off of their lifestyle, first and foremost. So what's going to make sense for them to kind of most easily integrate it into their lifestyle. I know some people, who smoking is just completely off the table, and so we take smoking off the table and we look at topicals or vaping if that is something that's still on the table for them, or edibles, and then we really talk about dosing. For the novices that are kind of like, “I'm open to anything!”, then typically I encourage them to smoke, to try that out, just because with edibles you can really like get yourself into quite a long experience, especially if you don't know your dose, if you're really not prepared, it can become very intense very quickly. And so looking to flower that has that whole, that is that whole plant medicine, has that full spectrum and really giving them the dosing tools to make sure that they don't have a bad experience. But then some other people need something that, again, maybe doesn't require them to inhale anything hot into their lungs but they also want something that's immediate and very discreet, and so then we could look at something maybe like a lozenge which they could put under their tongue or a tincture that they could put into smoothie or something like that so they could easily dose throughout the day. And anything that's going to be more sublingual, meaning that it's kind of bypassing your digestive system, going directly into the bloodstream through the mouth under the tongue, will achieve a more immediate effect, quicker activation time than something like an edible, which could take very long. But if there's some if there's somebody who's using it for sleep, then maybe an edible makes most sense because it could help them sleep through the night. So there's, there are a lot of different options for a lot of different people and really it's dependent on, okay what makes most sense for your lifestyle and also what kind of experience do you want to achieve, and that will really determine what consumption method works for you.
Wayne: Yeah, yeah that's a good one to talk to budtenders about, is that activation time and then length of, you know, how long is that experience gonna last. Because yeah, edible is a lot different than smoking (*Laughter* Yeah) but you know if you're if you're brand new to cannabis even you know something that simple like you don't you might not know that right you might think the edible works immediately and lasts for an hour because that's how you know two hours like flower but yeah budtenders will definitely, all should probably have a really good knowledge base on product, different products and those things, that they will understand and can give you good information.
Emma: I would certainly hope so! Like that is like, budtender 101, must, must know that - and in my experience they have, which is good.
Wayne: Great, great. So, people with different ailments, you know, we talked about pain or anxiety or sleep - is there any information we could give them on where to start with products for different ailments that might be kind of specific that we know work really well for these certain things?
Emma: Mmm yeah, I think that in general a good option would be to start with a very low dose of an equal concentration of both THC and CBD, or like a 2:1 CBD to THC ratio, so 5 milligrams of CBD two and a half milligrams of THC I think that that's a really kind of good safe starting place for people to figure out, “Oh no okay, I do have a sensitivity to THC and I really didn't like it” So maybe we move more into the CBD realm or “I want more THC”, whatever it may be. In general, anything or any kind of disorder like the Dravet’s syndrome, like seizure disorders, muscle spasm disorders, a higher concentration of CBD seems to be more effective. Also when looking to manage anxiety and depression, higher concentrations of CBD seem to be more effective. When looking to manage pain, that equal concentration of THC to CBD seems to be the most effective there. When looking to help offset the different symptoms that may come from chemotherapy or cancer treatment, again, equal concentrations of CBD to THC seem to help. For, for like really like trying to manage cancer without chemotherapy, a higher dose of THC may be the way to go. If you are trying to achieve a really sedative response, a higher THC level may be the way to go. For a novice, so for somebody who has never consumed, even if they may be coming in for a really serious medical condition, I don't recommend to start with a high dose of THC, just because of those negative experiences that can occur, it can really scare people from not wanting to go there, and so it's always safer to start with low dose, close to 1:1 ratio of CBD to THC, maybe even a little bit more CBD than THC. And maybe even also having some kind of product on hand that is CBD dominant so that just in case you are sensitive to THC, you can add more CBD as you go.
Wayne: Yeah, and then on the so for around terpenes like we discussed too, so those were our cannabinoids to start for different ailments. On the terpene side is it you know there's a lot of if you Google cannabis terpenes there's a lot of stuff out there about, this terpene helps with these certain things and this one with those, is that more kind of, I don’t know if trial and error is the right word because, well I guess there could be error like Terpinolene, you didn't, that one really doesn't help you out but it's kind of, you know, getting your cannabinoid ratios down and then those, supplementing those terpenes in and figuring out which, just which one works for you by trying a couple different ones for what you’re trying to accomplish?
Emma: Definitely, yeah, and there are certain like good general rules or categories for the different terpenes, like Linalool for example, which is found in lavender, abundantly found in cannabis, that acts as a sedative, can also be really helpful for depression, so if you're looking for something maybe a more calming experience looking for that terpene may be helpful. Pinene, terpene found in pine needles, actually its greatest therapeutic value is its ability to help offset those negative side effects from THC, it gives a really kind of clarity of mind experience, it helps to open up the lungs get more oxygen to the brain, also helps to reduce the memory impairment effect that is coming from, that may come from THC. So that could be a good one if you're looking to maybe incorporate more THC into your lifestyle but offset those negative side effects. And then there are of course tons more in between like Limonene, the citrus terpene, which actually interacts with our serotonin and dopamine so it could really help boost that anxiolytic effect, or anti-anxiety effect. There's beta-Caryophyllene or Caryophyllene, I always say that one wrong, that can actually engage the Endocannabinoid Receptor System, so it can effectively engage with our CB2 receptors causing many medicinal, kind of, pathways to ensue, and so that could also be a good one if you're looking for pain management muscle relaxation. There are a lot of ways to go, definitely, and there are actually some pretty good resources out there online where you can find good terpene information. SC labs is a good one that I typically go to; if you are interested in getting into the more like nitty-gritty research, Dr. Ethan Russo has a lot of research on terpenes out there which could be helpful as well.
Wayne: Okay, yeah. I know there's quite a few of them so yeah figuring out which ones to kind of put together or try is, you know, there's a lot for I think a new consumer to kind of figure out and figure out which one they want to try, some good stuff out there, that’s good to know. (Definitely) and I'd like to cover dosing recommendations and how to consume. So and correct me if I'm wrong, if you're gonna if we're gonna try to make this as simple as possible for a new consumer, there's really oral or inhalation as two of the main methods there's also transdermal there's another option, topical rub. So for oral, that's always expressed in milligrams for THC (Yes) and your inhalation is percentage of THC. (Yes) Are those the two kind of measuring metrics that are used for THC and cannabinoids for consumers to look for?
Emma: Yes, definitely.
Wayne: And what would be a dosing recommendation if they were looking at milligrams or the percentage of THC if they were inhalation, and we kind of hit on it a little bit, but we want to kind of let them know where they could start?
Emma: Yeah, definitely. So I am a big supporter of micro-dosing. I think that micro-dosing is the way to go, especially if you are a novice and you don't have much experience with cannabis. It will just allow you to really like tune into what the experience is or even could be, if you do need a higher dose, without giving you that kind of overwhelming negative experience. And so a good place to start for THC would be about 2.5 milligrams of THC. I do recommend to take it in the evening just in case you experience any adverse events. People are very sensitive, or can be very sensitive, to THC and so they can experience psychoactivity at one milligram you know, but two and a half milligrams is a good safe place to start for most, most people don't experience psychoactivity until about five to ten milligrams, so two and a half milligrams good place to start. Take it in the evening, if you don't feel anything, the next night or whatever night, you can increase by one and a half milligrams and so then you go up to four milligrams of THC, see how it makes you feel. And with ingestion it is important to note that you should wait at least four hours before consuming more, really when you're starting to figure out what your dose actually is, don't consume anymore for that night, wait until the next evening or even the evening after that to really make sure that that you are understanding your dose. Especially with oral ingestion of cannabis, it's really dependent on liver processing and metabolic rate, and so it could take you 24 hours to process it. You know we, we’re not quite there yet with the kind of hard science of, “Yes you take this milligram amount and every single person will have this effect within this time frame” and we probably will never get there because of the variability of this medicinal plant. And so wait a day and increase your dose. If you do experience psychoactivity at two and a half milligrams and it is something that you are uncomfortable with, it is not pleasant at all, then reduce your dose by one and a half milligrams. So start with one milligram the next night, see how it makes you feel and note also symptom relief, note like cognitive experience, mood, as well as symptom relief and that will help you in this kind of dosing structure figure out, okay at seven and a half milligrams I got the relief that I wanted, I maybe am a little high but I don't have the adverse events this is something that I can do. Or if, let's say, you get to a place where it's just like, this isn't working I'm not achieving symptom relief, then that's where we look to incorporate maybe some other cannabinoids like CBD into the mix. With oral ingestion of CBD like we had touched on, you can start at a way higher dosage. So you can start at 15 to 20 milligrams as a micro dose, see how it makes you feel - again I would recommend to consume in the evening, and that's just so if you consume in the morning then your whole day could be shot. You know, the evening is a much safer kind of place if you do experience adverse events, you could just sleep it off. But yeah, with CBD it's a higher starting dose there, and then you can work up in kind of five milligram increments. So if you don't experience the symptom relief at 20, go up to 25 the next night, so on so forth. And if you experience maybe something that's uncomfortable and you're also achieving symptom relief, you can decrease your dose the next night.
Wayne: Yeah, is there anything that could have prepared or ready in case they do over-consume, or too, that experience is too high or anxiety or those things start happening, that kind of can help balance that experience and level it out for them?
Emma: Definitely, yeah. Some CBD on hand is always a good way to go, that EpiPen of cannabis kind of effect that happens. You can also have like black peppercorns people like to chew on, we're not sure if that's a placebo effect, but beta-Caryophyllene is found abundantly in black peppercorn and so we know that beta-Caryophyllene has an anxiolytic, anti-anxiety, property associated with it. And so maybe that's what's happening there, it's worked for a lot of people even if it's placebo. Also having some lemon balm on hand, something citrus maybe so that you get a little added Limonene, some Linalool, AKA lavender, to help you kind of calm down. There are certain things, certain tools that you can have on hand to help. Drinking a lot of water is important, putting on a funny TV show, surrounding yourself with good people, good friends, safe space, all very important things. An intentional cannabis experience, especially when you're first starting out, is really important.
Wayne: Yeah, that setting of being around friends or family, people you're comfortable with, because when you first start to experience THC and if you kind of go on a little bit higher end or you're feeling those psychoactive effects it can feel kind of awkward, especially if you're around strangers or in a foreign environment, but if you're at home with people you really like, that's normally when you just start laughing ridiculously and you can't figure out why or something's goofy but…
Emma: Exactly, yeah, situational awareness is huge, huge - how much water have I had today, have I had a fight with my partner, was I stressed out at work, how much fat have I eaten - because cannabinoids and terpenes are fat soluble, so especially if you're ingesting orally, that will make a difference. Who am I with, where am I at - all of these things will contribute to the overall experience and it is important I think to note beforehand, again if you keep a journal just make quick notes of those things, of course in addition to what product you're actually consuming, how you're consuming the different ratios of cannabinoids, all those types of things will help you to gather the most data for yourself for what works for you.
Wayne: Yeah, I think what's great now is, as you're starting off as a new consumer, first time user, that kind of incremental process to figure out what works, and then you kind of get in your rhythm and you identify a product and you like it. Now with all the lab testing and the regulations and how, you know, aboveboard these companies are in the products that are out there, they're so consistent now that if you find something that works you can be really confident going back to that same product is gonna do the same thing time and time again for you, where in the past I mean if you had a brownie, you know, if something's not potency tested that's just a huge red flag situation there but we're going even deeper than that and talking about terpenes and full-spectrum and these other things where there's this consistency and reliability to the experience now, which is just amazing.
Emma: Yeah exactly, and I mean that is what the consumer market will start to demand, I mean, they have they already have, they already are and so it is our job in this industry to give them that degree of predictability and consistency that we can, with always the caveat of this is an experiment for you, I can help guide you to the experience that I think that you're looking for based on this chemotypic data or the cannabinoid and terpene concentrations, as well as the consumption method with all these guidelines for dosing, but ultimately the experience that that you are going to have is going to be a unique one, really like tracking that for yourself will help you to find what works best for you.
Wayne: Yeah, I thought this next section could be fun too. So initially I had you know what questions should a consumer ask a budtender when going into a store have different product categories, but I thought what we could do is we could go through each product category and if you just want to give me like three questions either you would ask a budtender, or a new consumer should ask about those product categories so that they're kind of armed with some information going in to like know what questions to ask make sure they're getting the right products and a good deal. But we'll just go through product categories and tell me a few questions you'd ask the budtender?
Emma: Yeah, I love that, it's like lightning round!
Wayne: Yeah so if you're going in to purchase flower, bud, what would you ask the budtender?
Emma: Mmm, number one, was this grown organically, and how do you make sure of that? If so, is there any type of certification on the company? What, what are the cannabinoid and terpene potencies? And have you tried it, and how does it make you feel?
Wayne: That's a good one, like that - Vape cartridges?
Emma: Mmm, How was it made? So was it a CO2 process, BHO process, how is it extracted? Are there any additives that you know of like propylene glycol or additional terpenes? And what is the coil made out of - is it made out of silica, fiberglass, cotton, ceramics? And I'm gonna say fourth question, but tell me about the battery that I have to use - do I have to press it five times, do I have to press it three times, are there no buttons so I just auto draw?
Wayne: Okay, yeah. On the CO2 and BHO, I want to go into a few of those a little deeper - is there specific like extracts or concentrates you like or prefer that a consumer could look for, for certain reasons?
Emma: Yeah I definitely, so I'll preface this by saying I'm not a concentrate girl, way more of an edibles person, that's like actually my favorite way to consume, but I do use some vape cartridges and typically I stay away from BHO, I just don't like the idea of residual butane in there even if the company is telling me that there's not, I'm just skeptical. CO2 or live resin, which is a BHO process I'll kind of sacrifice that if I really love the company. CO2 is typically what I look for, but I really make sure that there's no propylene glycol in there, that it's not cut with anything to decrease its viscosity because that's typically why, and I also like my CO2 oil without any added terpenes, specifically any added like synthetic or artificial flavors. I'm not a fan of like the bubblegum vape pen that tastes like bubblegum kind of thing. So yeah, I like a really clean CO2 oil that has been processed in such a way that they do preserve as many of those natural terpenes as possible.
Wayne: Okay, what would you ask if purchasing an edible?
Emma: Mmm, so what concentrate was this made with? Was it at CO2, BHO rosin or… so, how is it dosed or where is the dosing information on the package? And how would you recommend to consume it? Would you recommend to consume it with some additional fat, what is the fat content of that edible?
Wayne: What about a tincture?
Emma: Tincture again, ask what the solvent is - is it alcohol, glycerin, oil? Where's the dosing information - how do I know what half a dropper is, versus an eighth of a dropper, versus a full dropper? And is this something that I can put into my juices, smoothies or is it something that you would recommend to put under the tongue and hold it, hold under the tongue, and if so for how long?
Wayne: Okay. Is there a certain solvent that you prefer in tinctures, or is more ideal?
Emma: I am NOT a fan of glycerin, that's more of a personal preference though - I just really don't like the taste. I like organic sugar cane alcohol. We've talked a lot about how cannabinoids and terpenes are fat soluble, but really the term for it is they're nonpolar, which means that they cannot dissolve into water. They can dissolve into any nonpolar solvent, which is oil or fat or alcohol. And alcohol, I think, actually does the best job at pulling out the cannabinoids and terpenes. So I like a good alcohol tincture, I like the way it burns, it makes me feel like it's working, but also oil, I'm also a fan of an oil tincture, yeah.
Wayne: Sure yeah, and you need so little with the tincture most of the time they're pretty potent, just a few drops.
Emma: Exactly, and I will kind of add as like a, anything that I'm going to be ingesting specifically or even vaping, like where are they getting their source material from, where does this company source their flower from, and do you know the farms growing practices? Because when we do concentrate down plant material, we're concentrating down whatever inputs were put into that, and that includes pesticides, fungicides, any synthetic nutrients and that's really important to me again to have a really clean product.
Wayne: What about for topicals? Are you a topical user often?
Emma: Topicals… I do use topicals sometimes. I like, can't consume actually during the day, I just usually have a lot of work to do and cannabis unfortunately does not help me accomplish work, I'm not that person, but I do have like general muscle pain throughout the day, I have sciatica, so that's where like a topical comes in handy. So I'll ask about what the base of it is, if it is a butter, what kind of oil it is, and if they have any information about how it will, like how it will be delivered through my skin, if it was cut with anything that did, that will make the skin more porous that will increase the ability for those cannabinoids or terpenes to enter into the skin. I'll also ask how much I should use, how much should I apply, and how often would I need to reapply?
Wayne: Okay. And on topicals as far as dosage, is there any concern or issue there with, you can't, topicals won't get you high is that correct? It won’t get through the blood-brain barrier by rubbing on the skin?
Emma: Yes, exactly yeah. Our skin is actually really, really thick if we look at a cross-section of it and so the likelihood of it making through, making it through that layer into the bloodstream and getting up to your blood-brain barrier, it's unlikely. I mean with cannabis, I always give the caveat - anything could happen! So you never know and so again, try out a little bit, usually I recommend on like the inside of the wrist or the ankle where the skin is really thin so that you can just test, mostly to see if you have an allergic reaction to any of the things that are included in the topical because sometimes companies will have like proprietary essential oil blends in there, but typically no, you should not get high from it and you should be able to reapply it as much as possible. I've heard stories of people who use topicals who are like no I swear I got high. It's like okay, did you like eat food with your hands still having the topical on it? Did you like happen to smoke weed at one point during the day? Like, let's think about this here, and usually most people are like, “Oh yeah, you're right, I did smoke that joint, or I did eat that edible, or I did eat food with topical still on my hands”, and so yeah. Typically, it shouldn't, but it may.
Wayne: I has another question with topicals, I things to be good for listeners. I was actually really suspicious of them when, you know, the legalized market came out and because of that, that you can't get high from them, it doesn't go to the blood-brain barrier, so my thought was like well, what are they even doing? To me they're just sitting on top of your skin, that's great but how are they working? But you've actually told me they have, you do have receptors that react with topicals in your skin to that that makes it, actually topicals are effective and do actually work.
Emma: Yes, yes we do have Endocannabinoid receptors in our skin. We also have family of receptors called TRPV1 receptors that cannabinoids can and do engage with that help to reduce inflammation and decrease sensitivity to pain.
Wayne: Okay, interesting. Well that was the end of kind of questions I had planned and then I've got a series of questions from, that listener submitted if you want to walk through those and (yeah) wrap up (let's do it) all right - what is the best way to ingest cannabis with the least amount of side effects? So in any form…
Emma: Hmm, so to consume cannabis? (Yeah) Um, I would say it depends on what the side effects are, what you're trying to avoid. If it is that anxiety, paranoia, memory impairment, I would say look more to the actual compounds. CBD and Pinene, that terpene that I mentioned, are actually good at helping to reduce the negative side effects that come from THC, and so incorporating a little bit more CBD maybe into whatever you're consuming and making sure that it does have high Pinene levels could help. I would not suggest eating an edible, just because it can last and be in your system for a very long time, some people could still be high like 48 hours after they've consumed - again that's atypical, but it does happen. I'd say vaping is probably the way to go, it just allows you to first of all like measure your dose better. Where smoking it's harder to micro-dose, you could get through half a joint and then just like 20 minutes later be like, oh my god I'm really high, where vaping every like two to five second draw is typically just about 2 to 5 milligrams of THC if you have a THC dominant concentrate in there, and so it's easier to kind of modulate the dose.
Wayne: Okay - what's a standard edible, like, length of experience would you say?
Emma: Standard, I'd say is about 4 to 7 hours (4 to 7 hours?) yeah.
Wayne: Ok. What benefits does eating the raw plant have?
Emma: Mmm, so this has actually come up a lot recently just in questions that I've been getting, and I think that there is this trend towards consuming the raw cannabinoid. So when we smoke or vapor eat an edible, the cannabinoids that we are consuming have been activated, they've been changed from their acidic form into their quote-unquote “active form”, however a lot of people juice cannabis leaves in order to get those acidic compounds, and while we don't have enough research to draw conclusive evidence or to claim kind of conclusive experience or properties of these acidic cannabinoids, there is research to suggest that consuming raw cannabis and consuming those acidic cannabinoids can have potent anti-inflammatory efficacy in particular, and that those acidic cannabinoids, especially if consumed through the digestive system, are actually very bioavailable. So they’re, they are more bioavailable than the cannabinoids in their active form which is interesting. Shouldn't really get you high, however I just consumed some CBD-A, so the acidic form of CBD-A coming, or packaged in, a full spectrum hemp product and I definitely felt some type of way. (Really?) I was definitely like relaxed, my mood was elevated - no it was not the THC like high thank goodness, I was happy for that, but I definitely felt a change in my cognition for sure.
Wayne: Okay, so we were talking about full spectrum earlier; I've always understood hemp to really be you know grow their CBD in there but it's mostly only CBD that the hemp plant grows, but you just said full-spectrum hemp - are there now hemp strains or plants that are actually growing a more full spectrum profile and not just like isolated CBD?
Emma: Mmm, so full spectrum just means that it's the full range or close to the full range of secondary compounds that that plant has produced and so while it's CBD dominant, it doesn't mean that it's only producing CBD as its only secondary compound. Hemp, its legal status is defined by having less than .03 percent THC. So it could still have .02 percent THC, which if it's included in full spectrum hemp product, there could be a little bit of THC in there. And the hemp plant also produces terpenes and flavonoids and other compounds as well; again, not as much as the cannabis plant, as the drug cultivar cannabis, but it's - you can still have a full spectrum hemp product.
Wayne: Okay. Is that something a consumer should look out for, especially if ordering from an online company that they might say, this is full-spectrum extract, which it very may well be, but if their input material, the plant they start with is low quality, it could still be full spectrum but you're not getting all these different terpenes or secondary compounds? So really lab results I guess, if you can get those…
Emma: Definitely, lab results yes, making sure that you really do some research as to what company you’re sourcing from - that is the biggest, biggest piece of advice that I give to people who are looking to incorporate CBD into their lifestyle, but don't have access to legal cannabis, so they're looking to hemp. Research the company, reach out to them, ask them if they have lab testing done, ask them about their practices, ask them where they source from. If they don't give you any information, that's a good kind of red flag to maybe move on to another company.
Wayne: Certainly I've seen, well we kind of hit on this, I've seen people juice plants before, but can you get high from that?
Emma: You could, you could. Again atypical, I feel like I've said this word like a million times in this episode. (Laughter) Again, you shouldn't, because it's an acidic form of the cannabinoid which means that it can't effectively engage with the endocannabinoid receptors, so it can't really trigger that psychoactive experience, but - if you're using something like a Vitamix per se, there may be high enough heat in there that some of that, some of those acidic compounds have now turned into activated forms of THC, we're not, we're not still like really a hundred percent clear on what’s happening through the digestive system, and so I would say that but you can, and like I had mentioned with my own personal anecdote even from CBD, I definitely felt a change in my cognition. I don't know if I would call it high in, in the way that we think about a THC high, but there was definitely a change in my mood there.
Wayne: We covered the ratio 1 to 1 THC:CBD, does your body build up a tolerance to CBD?
Emma: Mmm so that's a good question. Your body can build up a tolerance to almost anything really. When we talk about tolerance with cannabis, we talk more about the way that THC tolerance happens, and so we can definitely build up a tolerance to THC, most people know that who are avid consumers. The cool thing is that it only takes 48 hours to reset your tolerance from a tolerance break. CBD, we don't build up a tolerance to CBD in that same way. So CBD especially has the ability to really interact and support our endogenous cannabinoids, so our cannabinoids that our body makes itself, by helping to reduce this compound that floats around in the body called FAAH, it's a fatty acid that is made when we are stressed. And when we are stressed, no matter what type of stress it is, the body makes that compound and then stores it in storage vesicles for later use and when our body makes an endogenous cannabinoid called Anandamide, this FAAH that's just floating around can immediately denature Anandamide, so it's one of the compounds that can actually destroy Anandamide before it even has an ability to engage with our system. What CBD can do is it can destroy FAAH, and so thereby it supports Anandamide’s ability to engage with our Endocannabinoid Receptor System, creating a kind of opportunity for us to not need as, to supplement with as many phyto-cannabinoids, which is interesting. So we can't really, in that kind of sense CBD actually helps to support the functioning of our own endogenous system, and so there's not this kind of like super tolerance build-up there. I will say that, especially in the way that it combines with THC, that if we're building up our THC tolerance, it'll probably take way more CBD to then help balance that out if that makes sense, but we don't build tolerance to CBD in the same way that we do to THC.
Wayne: Okay, makes sense. Will I fail a drug test consuming CBD?
Emma: I'm going to abstain from answering that, because you very well may. And there was actually that very unfortunate story that came out several months ago about the bus driver from, it was I think maybe from Beaverton, somewhere in, right outside of Portland - there was a bus driver who was taking, or he claims he was only consuming hemp CBD, and he failed his drug test unfortunately. And so you very well may. If you are somebody who has to have regular drug testing for whatever reason, I would stay away from cannabis unfortunately, just because there are those kind of accounts and reports of people even with hemp derived CBD that has less than that .03 percent THC still failing drug tests by like quite a large margin, yeah.
Wayne: My understanding of that was if, if you truly had CBD 100 percent isolated you consume that, you would pass a drug test with only CBD if that's all there was, but so often the case is there is a very small amount of THC that is in hemp, that is in there and that comes along with that just hemp derived CBD that you're getting, so that's what's causing you to fail a drug test, but in theory if it was 100% pure CBD, you would be able to pass I believe - is that accurate?
Emma: It is, because drug tests for, or to detect cannabis use are only testing for THC, (okay that’s what they’re looking for) they're not testing for CBD, at least to my knowledge now. However I think that anybody in the cannabis business, anybody as an industry professional, you should never really assure people that they'll pass the drug test (yeah, that’s risky) if they use any type of hemp or cannabis product, just because it's a huge liability and you never know what could happen. We're just not there yet with that kind of hard science, and quite frankly I don't know if we ever will get there.
Wayne:Yeah, hopefully we'll get somewhere, where we stop drug testing for THC, haha…
Emma: Exactly! Exactly, that would be the true goal, when we can stop drug testing…
Wayne:Seems a lot easier, yeah - Can dogs have CBD, and is it a different kind if so?
Emma: Pets can definitely have CBD. It's not a different kind, so that's actually a good point to make, in that CBD that comes from hemp and CBD that comes from cannabis and CBD that comes from other sources, it's the same exact molecular structure all across the board. It's just the different supporting compounds that are within those different matrixes that will influence the way that CBD can interact with your physiology, but CBD for pets is the same CBD that that you can take as a human. And there are many dog treats that I'm seeing now even in supermarkets, here in Oregon at least, where there is a good amount of CBD. I know that my very good friends, they have cats and they give their cats CBD tincture and the cats love it; they are just like, they chill, they eat, they sleep and they're typically very anxious cats, so it's nice to see them kind of calm down. (Mellow a little) Yeah!
Wayne: Yeah, what about THC for dogs or cats?
Emma: No, not great. I know people who have had pets with, who were going through like cancer or again more of those severe medical conditions, that they did choose to dose them with a little bit of THC just to try to help ease the pain more and maybe even hopefully help to, like manage the disease, give them a longer better quality of life; it's just hard when we talk about giving an animal THC because they can't communicate their experiences to us. And so if they are having a really paranoid time inside their head, I bet that would just be so uncomfortable for them and could definitely increase neurotic behavior. If your goal is to decrease neurotic behavior, I would suggest staying away from it, or if you are like really hell-bent on trying it for a pet that does have maybe cancer or something like that, do have very, very low dose.
Wayne: Low amount. So on oral consumption of CBD in relation to child development, dosage effects on mental and physical health develop development and CBD. I've seen more stories around children, epilepsy, it's working there - is there any concerns or side effects or that would you know around CBD with children?
Emma: Hmm, so I haven't seen any research that's looked at the long-term use of CBD and its effects on the brain, the heart, the lungs - that's typically what researchers look to in terms of like long-term adverse events. There was that research paper that actually we discussed in the last episode that we did together that came out in January, looking at different dosing methods and also different adverse events that have been associated with cannabis use, and there was a study out of Canada that was done that showed no long-term adverse events associated with cannabis use specifically looking at brain, heart, and lung function, which was awesome. However, there has been research to suggest that especially in young developing brains, THC specifically can impair memory and definitely lead to memory loss; it's kind of the opposite in the older populations, which is interesting in that THC and cannabis in general can help to reverse that memory loss, which is cool. But that I would say is the major adverse event that has been associated with cannabis use in young people. That being said, I don't think that that is correlated to CBD, I think that's specific to THC and that may just be because we don't have that long-term research yet, because the kind of start of children consuming CBD oil to help with seizure disorders has just started happening over the last like decade. And so I'm sure more research will come out to that and hopefully we will see that there are no adverse events associated with long-term use, but specifically in that case I'd say well, if you have a child who was having 40 seizures a day or even a hundred seizures a day, and now they're taking this CBD-dominant oil and they're having maybe 1 to 5 seizures a day, I think that that benefit outweighs any potential memory impairment, but that's also just my opinion.
Wayne: Sure. What's the difference between traditional full-spectrum RSO, and the new activated BHO or CO2 oil that is being marketed as “full extract cannabis oil”, which is then clear, or when it is clear?
Emma: Mmm, so that's a different, that's a difference in solvent. So, RSO or FECO, full extract cannabis oil, it is made with, hopefully made with, organic food grade alcohol. And like I had mentioned, that is really the best solvent to pull out those cannabinoids and terpenes. It’s also, if it is true FECO, true full extract, it has been done at a very low temp so that you are preserving as many compounds as possible, and it's been extracted for a very long time. So usually you still have a lot of plant material in there, which is a good clue that your extract has a truly full spectrum, if you have little particulates, little plant material, because in order to really extract out your plant waxes, your plant phenols, you need high temp typically. I'm sure there's some proprietary process out there that will contradict me, but from what I've seen and from what I know, really to get that clear oil, that relates to the second part of the question, you do need high temp. And so, for the CO2 and the BHO that's been, that's being marketed as full extract, they may be doing like a low temp process first, pulling out some terpenes, pulling out some of those more volatile compounds and then running the remaining oil through a higher temp, higher pressure extraction and then kind of like putting those two pieces together. They also could just be running a very low and slow process, which could create a full spectrum oil. I have consumed and I know companies that do this with CO2, and their oil is very clear - it is darker in color, it's more amber, but it is, it's doesn't have particulates which could mean that they just like, did a very rigorous winterization process where they do wash it with ethanol and store it in a really cool place to try to pull out as many plant waxes as possible. So it is absolutely possible to have a full spectrum CO2 oil; that I've consumed, that I know. It still may not have the same efficacy as a full spectrum or a full extract cannabis oil that has been extracted with the food grade organic alcohol, just because that alcohol is such a powerful solvent and pulling everything out. With BHO, you typically need high temp, high pressure. I have not personally seen a BHO extract that has been done low temp for a very long time that also has pulled out any of the residual butane. So that would be my one concern, and definitely something that I would ask a company who is making BHO where they did claim full extract, was okay well how are you making sure that one, you're preserving as many compounds as possible, what is your extraction length, what's your temperature look like, and how are you ensuring that you're pulling out as much butane in the process?
Wayne: Yeah, yeah it's interesting, the full spectrum term. Because in any process there's gonna be some efficiency losses, so probably not a hundred percent conversion from the flower, maybe even in the most ideal perfect world (Right) something is, even when you harvest the flower terpenes are, you know, aromatic and you're losing some of them, but what is the most effective at consuming most of the, getting most of the terpenes and cannabinoids into that product. (Mm-hmm, definitely) I got one, I can sum that later looks good - well that was all questions I had. Do you want to let know, people know where they can find you if they want to learn more, see what you're doing?
Emma: Yeah definitely. So I do have a website you could find me at, emmachasen.com; there's a contact form there, so please feel free to get in touch with any questions that you may have. I'm also on pretty much all the socials - I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, and LinkedIn, if anybody's looking for some business development connection. So yeah please, please feel free to reach out through any of the channels.
Wayne: Awesome, thank you so much Emma. It was really great.
Emma: Oh yeah I'm so glad to be back!
Wayne: Yeah, hopefully I think we provided a nice foundation for a new consumer and (I think so) arm them with quite a bit of information and knowledge and ready to go out into the world…
Emma: Yes! Go out into the cannabis world, and feel confident to be able to, to try this out. I think cannabis can be for everybody, but it's about knowing the right questions to ask. So this has been great, thank you.
Wayne: Yep, thanks Emma.
E050 Cannabis Science 101: From Novice to Pro 1of2
This is a really special episode! Not just because it’s our 50th Episode, but because it should help the most amount of people. This talk with Emma Chasen is a great primer into Cannabis Science for everyone - your Grandma, your Friends, your Local Budtender. This Episode will provide a solid foundation of Cannabis knowledge for the beginner. Please Share!
Go to this page for more knowledge and past Episodes with Emma www.periodiceffects.com/101
Episode Transcription:
Wayne Schwind, Host: Cannabis 101: From Newbie to Novice - that's a working title, but (I love it haha) that's what we're hoping to accomplish today. So you got a grandma, friend who’s heard of cannabis, never heard of it, maybe heard of the word terpene, this will be a great foundational episode hopefully that they can listen to and feel like they got a pretty good handle to walk into a store, make a purchase, know what they're looking for. (Definitely) So Emma Chasen, you want to do a quick introduction if people haven't heard a past episode before, (Sure!) and then get started right into it?
Emma Chasen, Guest: Yeah, my name is Emma Chasen, I am a cannabis educator and industry consultant, and really I see my role as being able to kind of bridge this gap that we have in cannabis education right now. We have these really scientific, heavy, amazing research papers that are coming out but that are filled with a lot of that kind of science jargon, and then we have on the other side of the spectrum blogs and websites that are publishing cannabis science information, but if you try to track it down or try to find footnotes for it, they either don't exist, lead to dead ends, or maybe they're sponsored by a company, so I'm always kind of skeptical of that information, so what I try to do is take my science background, because I do have a formal degree in biology and medicinal plant research, so I am able to understand that kind of science heavy jargon and I see myself as having this responsibility to then translate it so that the general public, industry professionals, anybody can understand it.
Wayne: So I think for the first question, let's just start with, you know, maybe something real simple like, what is cannabis the plant and then maybe we could talk about hemp as well because I think for a new consumer those are the two categories they're gonna see when looking at the market, one you can buy online, one only in certain states, that seems kind of confusing. (Definitely) You just want to break those two categories down initially and then we'll start dividing under those?
Emma: Absolutely. So cannabis, to define it in botanical terms, it is a dioecious, vascular, flowering plant of the plant family Cannabaceae, and so to kind of break that down a little bit, ”dioecious” means that it typically has a male plant and a female plant. So we know that this is true for cannabis, our female plants are the ones that produce those really like, prized flowers that we all love to consume, it's what we smoke, the female flower. There are also male plants that are generally only used for breeding, if you want to kind of cross and make new genetics, you'd take some pollen from a male plant and put it onto the pistil of a female plant and create new genetics that way, but typically you want to keep your male and female plants separate, otherwise you could get seeded bud, which if you are looking to market that to a dispensary, that's definitely not what you want. It is also a vascular plant, meaning that it has vascular tissue. So vascular tissue allows plants to grow big and tall, away from its root system. Vascular tissue like xylem and phloem are like highways that allow the transport of nutrients throughout the plant. So cannabis can grow very tall away from its root system because it has that vascular tissue, and then like I mentioned it is flowering, so it produces flowers and the female flowers are the little cannabis buds, “nugs”, that you'll see on the market.
Wayne: Yeah, is that rare for plants to have, like, the separated male and female, separated like that or are most plants all combined into one?
Emma: I wouldn't say that it's necessarily rare, but there are a lot of plants and a lot of flowers in particular where you will see stamen, which is the male sex organ, right next to a pistil, and so that would be a kind of self-fertilizing flower, “monoecious” in that case.
Wayne: Yeah, so when a consumer, you know, there's cannabis and then inside of cannabis there's a lot of different types, and there's all these chemical compounds - for a consumer that's new, what are the main categories of compounds that make up the cannabis plant that would interest us, or why humans like to consume them, like what are those beneficial parts or inside of cannabis?
Emma: Yeah, so when we talk about cannabis now, we are typically talking about quote unquote “drug cultivar cannabis”, so the plant that has THC dominance, or at least a measurable concentration of THC in there, THC being the main cannabinoid found most abundantly in the cannabis plant, the cannabinoid that gets you high, but that also has many medicinal properties behind it, and that is part of a larger group of secondary compounds called the cannabinoids. So THC, CBD, many other minor cannabinoids, and then there are also terpenes in there as well, terpenes being the aromatic compounds found in all plants. They give plants their smell, but they also do correlate to some physiological effects and really when we talk about terpenes in cannabis, we think that they're the ones responsible for determining the differing effects between strains or genetics, if it's going to be energizing or relaxing. And then there are also the flavonoids, which have mostly antioxidant and anti-proliferative properties, so they're good at fighting cancer and we also think that they have something to do with how we taste cannabis, but there is - there's not that much research on flavonoids just yet, and right now our cannabis analytical testing laboratories don't test for flavonoids, so there's just not the data there yet. And those are just three of the kind of classes of secondary compounds that we know about. We predict that there are many, many more that we will hope to find out in the future, yeah.
Wayne: Yeah, and we'll get it each of those, you know, cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, we’ll dive into each of those categories because there's many different complexities under each of those, so it's interesting to learn that there also might be more subcategories besides those three that might have effects or something to do with how we're experiencing cannabis. And this is, um I don't know if this is a myth question or something I'd like clarified - when I talk about hemp sometimes, which you know these are the products that are being sold online, not necessarily in a state-licensed store, is the hemp plant the male plant of cannabis, and then the cannabis we’re growing for the flower with the THC is that the female plant, or is that wrong to say hemp is the male?
Emma: Hemp is not the male - so hemp can be female and actually, most of the hemp that is grown I believe is female, the female flowers are just nothing like what we think of as the flowers that we see on the shelf from cannabis in a dispensary. They're really not, they don't have like a tight morphology, they're not something that you would really want to smoke, they're quite loose. Hemp is, or can be thought of, as a subspecies of cannabis - so it's still under the cannabis umbrella, it just took a different breeding pathway as compared to the drug cultivar cannabis. (Ok) So drug cultivar cannabis, it was bred for THC and really it was bred illegally, and so there was quite a lot of genetic diversity and a lot of breeders did try to select for the highest THC content possible because that's what the black-market wanted, and so we now have this kind of genetic population of cannabis that has incredibly high THC concentrations and only just in the last few years has the CBD trend and the demand for CBD kind of risen. And CBD is abundantly found in hemp, which is cool, but hemp was not bred for its secondary compounds, hemp never had an illegal status or never had the kind of illegal status like the drug cultivar cannabis did, and so it was bred for its primary compounds, like its proteins and its fibers, it was used for its ability to help clean up the soil and for that kind of stuff. It wasn't really bred for high levels of CBD or terpenes or THC, but it does naturally have a dominant concentration of CBD and so that's why you will see hemp-derived CBD and cannabis-derived CBD products.
Wayne: Right yeah, and that's where I've, you know, I think consumers - there's kind of some confusion and there’s not a lot of clarity there when it seemed to me like hemp and cannabis were almost the two separated plants, but really hemp is cannabis, it's just a different strain or genetic line that's been bred (Exactly) right okay, makes a lot of sense. So starting with that main group, cannabinoids, do you want to kind of break down THC and CBD and what those, maybe what those are exactly and how they interact with the body so if a consumer was looking at, you know, walking into a store - that's really, would you say, the first thing if you're gonna select a product is THC, you know, concentration versus CBD, start there and then kind of work to those other categories, is that a good approach?
Emma: Yeah definitely, the cannabinoids are the main class of secondary compounds found in cannabis, and so they are the ones most abundantly found, and when shopping you should look to the THC and CBD concentration and definitely make sure to ask your budtender or whoever is kind of on staff about what experience you're looking for - or I guess not ask your budtender about what experience you're looking for, but tell them what experience you're looking for, and then they should help to kind of guide you to what cannabinoid concentration you will want. THC is, like I mentioned, the cannabinoid that is most abundantly found in this drug cultivar cannabis, just because of the way that it was bred for black-market and it has many medicinal properties - it can help with pain inflammation it does have anti-proliferative efficacy, so it can help fight cancer. However, there are some negative side effects associated with THC: so the anxiety, the paranoia, the elevated heart rate, THC does have the ability to kind of open up your circulatory system, it's called “vasodilation”, so really open up the veins, get the blood moving. That will lower your blood pressure, so you could also potentially faint if you have problems with blood pressure, and it also has been linked to memory impairment. And so there are some things to watch out for with THC, definitely if you've ever had an experience where maybe you've eaten pot brownie in college and just got really way too high and stuck inside your head, that was due to a THC overdose and so if you’re somebody who's prone to anxiety maybe that's something that you would want to steer clear from, or just look for a low concentration of THC. CBD on the other hand is the second most prominent cannabinoid found in cannabis and it has many, many medicinal properties. The one that really is conclusive, which actually the FDA just approved the CBD drug for Dravet's syndrome, which is a rare seizure disorder it has, CBD has been linked to anticonvulsant, anti-seizure properties but it also has been linked to anti-inflammatory, pain relieving, anti-anxiety, anti-depressant – many, many medicinal properties. And it also has the ability to kind of cut, or reduce those negative side effects from THC, so it helps to kind of bring down that overdose experience, it helps to improve memory and actually lessen the memory impairment thing that happens with THC. It also helps to reduce anxiety, reduce paranoia, so it can be used as kind of an EpiPen, I call it, of cannabis - if you're having a freak out, CBD can help kind of bring you down from that. And then, those are the two main cannabinoids to look for, most dispensaries should report both of those cannabinoid concentrations, and you should see those displayed right there on the product labels, but there are also the minor cannabinoids as well like CBC, CBG, CBN that can definitely influence the experience if they are in measurable or substantial concentrations.
Wayne: Okay, are products starting to show those results, or is there, you know, popularity in more of the minor cannabinoids, is that growing and building right now?
Emma: Definitely yeah, I have noticed some companies kind of, making the choice to display CBC, CBG, or CBN concentrations, if again they are in a substantial enough concentration. Also people are starting to talk about CBN because it does have really sedative properties, so for people who do want to use or find cannabis for sleep, they can look to something that maybe is a little higher in CBN concentration. For somebody who wants to potentially help kind of calm maybe a really reflux-y or inflamed GI tract, they could look for something that has a higher concentration of CBG. For somebody who's looking to treat a bacterial infection, maybe CBC. (Interesting) So there's, there are for especially those kind of specific ailment questions, there are the minor cannabinoids that you can look for.
Wayne: And if someone was really interested in the minor cannabinoids, or even real in-depth on just THC and CBD for their own ailments, is there a good source or platform where they could go to learn more about the individual minor cannabinoids for their own specific use if you know a specific ailment or something, is that difficult to figure out on the internet right now?
Emma: It is kind of difficult to figure out on the internet, I actually off the top of my head don't have a great website to recommend that really talks about each of those cannabinoids. You can definitely get in touch with me, I'm happy to talk more about those minor cannabinoids, even the major cannabinoids. There's also a website called Hempsley Health, which is an education initiative out of Missouri, so it's actually in a non-cannabis state, and I know that she talks a lot about wellness and holistic lifestyle, the Endocannabinoid Receptor System, I'm not sure if she has a page that really talks in-depth about the cannabinoids, but it could be a good place to start.
Wayne: Okay yeah, I mean we'll throw something the show notes too if we find a good resource for people. CBD, or THC and CBD, so just to recap there, it sounds like when you start look for the right THC dosage that's really critical not to go over, and we'll get into dosing a little bit later, but on the CBD side if you go, you know, two or three times as much as you should consume, is it quite safe to go high on CBD and you're not risking much?
Emma: Exactly, yeah, with THC it's really important to start with a very, very small dose if you do not know your dose or if you're unfamiliar with experimenting with cannabis, especially THC, I mean I recommend for people to start as low as two and a half milligrams of THC as a starting dose if they are going to be ingesting. If it's inhaling, it's a little bit harder to measure that dose, and so we say kind of like a two-second pull of a joint or a vape pen, and don't hold it into your lungs as long as you can - kind of pull it in, breathe it out, wait 10 minutes, see how it makes you feel. With CBD you can go up to a starting dose of 20 milligrams of CBD, and even that is considered kind of low, there's not much of a chance that you'll have a negative experience with CBD - there are definitely those people that have those atypical reactions where it does kind of incite rage, actually I've heard more than anything from those people who have atypical responses is that CBD can like, make them really angry. Which is interesting, don't know why, but they are even at that 20 milligram mark of CBD, even if it makes you really angry it shouldn't make you like, paranoid or super anxious or stuck inside your head like THC could.
Wayne: Okay, and you know for therapeutic use I think CBD is very attractive right now because you can buy it online if you're in a state that's illegal. If someone's trying CBD and it's not really working for them or they don't notice the effects is it true that a slight bump of THC or a very micro dose of THC to go with your CBD consumption makes it more effective or it depending on the person?
Emma: Yes - so one, I would say if you are living in a non-legal state and you are trying a CBD product, make sure that you know the source, make sure you know where it's coming from. A lot of people looking to capitalize on this growing trend of CBD are selling like, hemp seed oil as a CBD tincture - that's not the same thing. And so make sure that you are sourcing from companies who do do their own testing, who only source organic material, who are making full-spectrum products - so hemp products that have that full range of secondary compounds in there. And yeah just check in with the companies that you are looking to source from, and then if you are sourcing from a really great company with all those points like I said, and you're still not finding that you're really achieving the symptom relief that you want to, then incorporating a little bit of THC could definitely help improve the efficacy. It's not necessary because CBD does hit about 15 receptor families in the body, including the Endocannabinoid Receptor System, and so it doesn't need THC to engage with all of those receptor systems. However, I've specifically seen it when patients or customers are trying to treat pain, are trying to achieve symptom relief with pain, looking at a close to 1:1 ratio of THC to CBD seems to be the most effective, and that is because THC allows CBD to engage with the Endocannabinoid Receptor System in a much more efficient way.
Wayne: Interesting. So for a first-timer, maybe 2.5 milligrams THC with 2.5 milligrams CBD might be effective for pain specifically, and other things?
Emma: Definitely, yeah I have seen hemp-derived CBD without any THC or with a very like little, nominal concentration of THC be really helpful for people who are looking to achieve symptom relief from like, anxiety or depression, and that's because CBD does interact with our serotonin receptors and with a neurotransmitter called GABA that helps to regulate stress and mood. And so that seems to be effective without THC, but again if you're looking to treat or manage pain or a more severe ailment and you're not finding the relief that you want with just CBD, then just adding a little bit of THC in there may help, it's worth a try.
Wayne: Okay, I want to get into what you said about full spectrum in those other categories that make up cannabis that we talked about. Before we do that though, I think to set that up it might be helpful to talk about the body’s Endocannabinoid System, what that means and I would think of a, you know, if you're in a state that's illegal or you hear people talking good about like, cannabis is helping me with my pain and you have that old stigma, it's like everyone's just trying to get high, they're all lying, there's no way this could be the case, but I was really fascinated to learn how the Endocannabinoid System, we're literally producing similar like molecules that are in cannabis. So could we kind of break that down for a new consumer that maybe has never heard of that and what that means inside of our body, and what cannabis, how it's actually interacting with us?
Emma: Definitely, yeah. So the Endocannabinoid Receptor System is a system in our body that is comprised of different receptors, different molecules, different signaling molecules, and it really acts as the kind of like, lubricant for the body's organ systems. And the way that I explain it is that our body is constantly running, all of our organ systems are constantly running to make sure that we are alive. And anytime you have a machine that is constantly running, it's going to kind of have some hiccups right, it's going to have some failures, and that's where disease can occur and other health problems can occur. And so the Endocannabinoid Receptor System exists to keep those organ systems running smoothly, even though they have to run all the time. And we do produce our own endogenous cannabinoids, and so when we talk about cannabinoids like THC and CBD from cannabis - those are phyto-cannabinoids, they're derived from the plant. But our body does make its own endocannabinoids that can engage with our Endocannabinoid Receptor System to, again, help keep our bodies running smoothly. Unfortunately, our Endocannabinoid Receptor Systems are not running at optimal functioning level, or at least that is the theory, that a lot of people are deficient in endocannabinoids just because of maybe the nature of our reality right now, life is really stressful, the world is really stressful and so when we are in a constant state of stress, it's hard for our body to produce these endocannabinoids and to have them kind of existing in our system long enough to produce a positive effect. And so that's where supplementing with phyto-cannabinoids helps our Endocannabinoid System engage and helps that system then help all of our other systems run smoothly.
Wayne: Interesting, so is it similar to compare and say like when someone's Vitamin D deficient they can have problems in their health and, you know, a supplement with Vitamin D can help them get back to balance -is it kind of a similar thing with the endocannabinoid system and cannabis?
Emma: Yeah, that's a good way to kind of like wrap your head around it in that this theory of these of us all being deficient in our endocannabinoids it makes sense that we would then take phyto-cannabinoids like that supplement like Vitamin D to help our body achieve more optimal levels of health.
Wayne: Yeah it's fascinating like after, like you know hard exercise or if I'm feeling sore or a headache, if I ever feel like off, not just kind of like in a good groove, just a little bit of cannabis - or high stress like after work you just, it's this feeling of like just balance and everything kind of like lightens the load, and then you kind of keep moving forward, but it's such a strange experience. But to know your body is making very similar cannabinoids internally and that now cannabis is just mimicking that to what we're already producing. I think a lot of people start thinking cannabis is like this extra added drug you know that you're putting in your body, it's foreign, it doesn't exist there, so to hear that that's the case, you have the system that's almost built for those, that's really fascinating.
Emma: Yeah it definitely helps to fight that stigma that cannabis is this foreign drug that we shouldn't be using, it's changing us for the worse, whatever it may be or its… no, our Endocannabinoid Receptor System has existed for a very long time and cannabis has also existed for a very long time, and it makes sense that we should use this very medicinal plant to help us just have a better quality of life.
Wayne: Yeah definitely, so going back to full spectrum, what does that, so you talked about looking for something that's, you know, CBD you're buying it online, something that's “full spectrum” - what does that mean for a product, for a consumer looking to use a product, what's that full spectrum tagline, and what does it mean exactly?
Emma: Hmm, yeah so full spectrum means that in the product, there is the full range of secondary compounds or that in through the extraction process of making the oil or whatever the extract may be, that the maker, the processor, has done their kind of job to preserve as many of those compounds as possible in the end product. This relates to the theory of the Entourage Effect - so this is a theory that states that all of the compounds in the cannabis matrix are working together to produce the most medically efficacious response, that actually if you put cannabinoids and terpenes together, it will create a multiplicative effect, so it’s not even like cannabinoids plus terpenes equals this - cannabinoids plus terpenes equals a multiplied synergistic effect, where you can find a much greater level of symptom relief as compared to an isolate. And so for example, if you were just to take an isolate of THC or an isolate of CBD, it may not be as effective as a product that does have CBD, THC, minor cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids and all of the other compounds that we don't even know about yet.
Wayne: Okay. Now the full spectrum then, I guess, would love to get into these next two categories – is, to break that down simply as, does full spectrum mean cannabinoids plus your terpenes and flavonoids to go with it (Yes, yeah) versus isolated like you said just THC which would be that cannabinoid all on its own?
Emma: Exactly, and full-spectrum, of course it's important in relation to this Entourage Effect theory, and also it's important to understand kind of the way that you have to process the material in order to achieve full spectrum. Not everything is going to be full spectrum based on the way that you process it, because these different compounds have different boiling points, and so terpenes for example are very, very volatile - that's why we can smell them, because they are evaporating at room temperature. And so through an extraction process where maybe there's high heat, high pressure, a lot of these terpenes can be destroyed and so then you wouldn't be getting full spectrum. But if you did a really like, low temp slow, long process then you may come out with a full spectrum product, because you have done your job to preserve those terpenes with low temperature and just a longer extraction time.
Wayne: Okay, so what are terpenes then? Let’s start with that.
Emma: So, terpenes are tiny, little fat-soluble molecules, they are our aromatic compounds found in almost all plants and even some insects. So when you smell a flower, when you smell a plant and it has a smell, you are inhaling terpenes. They are found abundantly in cannabis, and they have many, many medicinal properties that are correlated to these terpenes, they are not just for smell. Really the plant produces them as their kind of defense system, so they exist on these structures called, or in these structures called trichomes that sit on the surface of the cannabis plant, and so they're like little like soldiers trying to protect the castle right? And because of that they have antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic – many, many different medicinal properties that, again, were created to help protect the plant. But as humans have found that they also have quite a bit of benefits for us. And I mean we consume terpenes every day: when you eat a citrus fruit, when you drink a beer, if you are into essential oils - those are concentrated forms of terpenes. And so there they're constantly around us and just because they are found so abundantly in cannabis, it's kind of led to us like really recognizing them and how medicinal they can be.
Wayne: Interesting - does cannabis have a higher than normal terpene content compared to other plants?
Emma: Cannabis has definitely a more diverse matrix of secondary compounds - so almost all plants have secondary compounds because they do exist to protect the plant, and then medicinal plants have higher concentrations of these secondary compounds. With cannabis, it's so special because there are so many different types of secondary compounds within one plant matrix - in cannabis alone there are over 200 identified terpenes, (wow) so it's a lot of terpenes, which is exciting.
Wayne: Yeah, yeah it's fascinating to have that much opportunity or potential, but also difficult at the same time as we try to figure out like, well what, you know we talked about THC and CBD just those two cannabinoids, and then there's a list of minor cannabinoids, and now let's throw terpenes into that as well, and figure out what profile or would be the best for pain or sleep or anxiety, because it seems like it's helping so many different ailments and we just seem to be figuring out what those terpenes, how that Entourage Effect is happening and helping all these different things.
Emma: So yeah it's like a giant puzzle that's also very specific to each individual, because each individual has their own unique Endocannabinoid Receptor System - so your Endocannabinoid Receptor System is very different from mine, and then on top of that it is constantly changing, our physiology, our own constitution is constantly changing. And so it is a really kind of fun thing with cannabis to work with people to really help them find the exact ratio of compounds that works for them, but also really helping them to find this like comfort with experimentation, with “this may change in a couple of weeks, you may find that you need something different”, and that's where something like a consumption journal or just keeping track of your own experience with different products really helps people start to find a pattern of what works for them and what doesn’t.
Wayne: Yeah and I, so there's a kind of a family of terpenes that I've seen more reoccurring or just seem to be more popular, that people are talking about more and so I have a question around, so Myrcene is one of those terpenes as an example, and my understanding is that one normally correlates to you know a little more sedative, calming, relaxing - like a nighttime, you know product if it had Myrcene in it. But is it true that, that's true for most people but for someone Myrcene might actually make them you know kind of, be more like uplifted, or not sedated by that terpene, is that the case then?
Emma: Sure, yeah, there is always a chance for an atypical response; generally Myrcene does decrease motility, which means that it does act as this kind of relaxer, it's a muscle relaxant. It generally helps with pain, but that that may be totally different in somebody else. Even in regards to cannabinoids, to THC - my partner, she like, if she consumes any THC immediately falls asleep, like just out like a light. For me, I can't fall asleep, it stimulates me, and so there is that variability. All medicinal plants have that variability, that's part of the reason why the FDA doesn't want to approve them, or can't approve them, because there's no standard dose, there's no standard experience really, and so again it's really giving yourself the permission to experiment with cannabis - of course, responsibly, employing tips and tricks like micro-dosing and consuming in the evening maybe, just in case you have an uncomfortable experience, to really begin to find what works for you. And I'd say with terpenes especially, there are certain terpenes that have quite like polarizing effects and experiences for different people. One in particular is Terpinolene, which can deliver a really motivating, focusing, inspiring experience for some; for others, it really gets them trapped inside their own head, is way too over-stimulating, I call it like the ping-pong thoughts inside the brain that just can't come out. And that, I've seen is kind of like a 50/50 split in people, yeah.
Wayne: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, yeah so that's really good for consumers and beginners too, if they tried cannabis once and, maybe smoking flower, and had a really negative experience like that, which was kind of anxiety and overwhelming causing, it could have been from a certain terpene or profile that wasn't ideal for you, and trying something else with a different terpene or profile could be very effective for you.
Emma: Definitely, yes. Feeling okay in that experimentation and having maybe some CBD on hand just in case an anxious response occurs, micro-dosing so that you never get to that place of like, really feeling so overwhelmed, and talking to your budtender or your friend who knows about cannabis, and looking for those terpenes that help calm the body instead of give that really stimulating response.
Wayne: Yeah, so what about, so flavonoids? (Hmmm) Interested in this category because it seems so on like I know it's the third like, secondary category that's important, but we just don't, I don't ever hear it talked about, I don't know what different flavonoids there are, you know we’re so focused on terpenes that I'm curious what lies behind like are there any mysteries or secrets that we could discover in this, you know, near future that might be having a lot to do with the different effects we experience from cannabis?
Emma: Yeah, definitely. I am excited for the day when cannabis analytical laboratories can and start tests start testing for flavonoids currently I believe there are 23 identified flavonoids in cannabis, and only two of them are specific to cannabis – meaning they're not found in any other plant and that they are aptly named Cannaflavin-A and Cannaflavin-B, so easy to remember. But then there are also other flavonoids found in the cannabis plant that are very, very popular among the plant kingdom - most of your foods or vegetables have flavonoids. So like broccoli, when you hear people talk about, “Oh, broccoli helps to fight cancer” they're talking about flavonoids found in broccoli. When you hear, “Oh, the antioxidants in blueberries are amazing” they're talking about flavonoids. Flavonoids, their general properties are antioxidant and cancer-fighting, those are the medicinal properties linked to flavonoids. Because flavonoids are found in our food, most of the research that has been done looks at how flavonoids kind of go through our digestive system and so and it's the same thing with terpenes we're really only beginning to understand what happens when you combust these compounds - when you heat them at really high temperatures. There was just a study done out of PSU (Portland State University) or I guess not just now, but a few months ago, where they looked at BHO (Butane Hash Oil) and consuming BHO, and they found that consuming BHO in high terpenes was actually creating this negative responses in people and that's because when you heated these terpenes at a really high, high temp, they were turning into toxic compounds. (Really?) Yeah, and so that's not to say that we can extrapolate that to flower because it was specifically looking at BHO and dabbing, but that's just one example of the research that we kind of still have yet to discover, we still have yet to do and uncover the ways in which these compounds change in their molecular structure when we do consume them by combustion or heating.
Wayne: Yeah, big one I was interested in was in chocolate. So dark chocolate, there you know, same kind of thing like, “Oh dark chocolate can be mood enhancing or lifts your spirits” and I found a company actually that has identified what that is, is a flavonoid called Flavonol is in chocolate, and they make like, a hyper-concentrated chocolate bar that's like nine times the amount found in normal dark chocolate of this Flavonol (Wow! *laughter*) and so I was like, well I wonder if cannabis produces Flavonol, or is that only a chocolate… flavonoid –I gotta keep all these words in order, there's so many (*Laughter*) but yeah, that just whole category, is there any research or anything known around, what did you call it, Cannaflavinol-A and B? Do we know much about those at all?
Emma: Yes, Cannaflavin-A and Cannaflavin-B – not much. Again, thought to have the antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. The two flavonoids that we have the most research on, I believe, is Apigenin, which is found in almost everything, which also has an anxiolytic response, so it helps with anxiety, helps to improve mood. It's also found in cannabis, and Quercetin, which you can actually easily find, kind of like, vitamin supplements of that in stores and again acts, I believe that one’s mostly antioxidant. And off the top of my head I can't remember if Flavonol, the euphoric agent, is found in cannabis, but like I said there are 23 identified thus far.
Wayne: Okay. Yeah, I wonder if one day like now growers are putting, you know, 6% terpenes on the flower and these four terpenes are the most dominant in this strain, like we get to see that now before we make a buying decision. (Mm-hmm) I wonder if one day it'll say like, 3% you know flavonoids and maybe these ones are the key ones, it'll be interesting if it keeps going there and we'll get even deeper with how they're buying and deciding on products.
Emma: Yeah, that would be awesome and again that kind of like helps us move forward in this conversation of full spectrum of the entourage effect of, okay we know that there are these individual flavonoids found in the matrix, but what happens when they interact with terpenes and cannabinoids? With terpene research and cannabinoid research we've already seen that, in that sometimes the isolated properties or the properties of the isolated compounds are completely different than the properties of these compounds when they interact with cannabinoids. A good example of that is Terpinolene, so that terpene that I mentioned that has that really kind of like polarizing effect on people; scientists first initially determined that it was a sedative because when they gave it to rats it decreased their motility, and so that led them to the conclusion, okay it's a sedative but anecdotally, it acts as a stimulant in people like overwhelmingly so. And so it's thought that when Terpinolene combines with THC, there's actually a synergistic reaction that happens that helps to kind of turn that decreased motility into increased motility. So it completely flips around that property of Terpinolene, which is cool and so when looking at flavonoids, I'm excited for the research to move forward and okay, yes, we know that there are these identified flavonoids in this matrix and these are the ways that they could work together with terpenes and cannabinoids to produce this experience.
Wayne: Yeah, yeah so you’ve talked to me about this before, I think is really important for listeners as well is a lot of the buying decisions right now seem to be more, and maybe it's moving away from this, but going in to look for flower with, you know, 30% THC or 32%, like what's the highest THC because that's the best value for my dollar, I want to get my money to stretch it, you know, be valuable for what I'm buying but what I've noticed and, you know, blind judging competitions for flower the strains that are winning are actually in the low 20s or even the high teens of THC you know 19%, 21% but a good terpene profile, you know, 5/6% terpenes and those will actually be more effective in the experience than that really high THC percentage and get you more value for your dollar actually so it's kind of confusing where you think you just most THC per dollar but those terpenes and full spectrum is really, really important for products and consumers.
Emma: Definitely, yeah and I think that like consumer thought of, “Oh, like best bang for my buck, have to go for the highest THC percentage” I think we're kind of still shedding the prohibition culture I mean still in a large portion of America it's still rather illegal to consume and buy cannabis and so there's still the shedding process of, for the last century we haven't had this kind of lab data, and so all of a sudden people are like, “Oh my god I can actually see the THC percentage, I'm obviously gonna go for the highest because that's what the black-market told me that I wanted, right?”. But there is this moment of kind of releasing that, of again this call for experimentation, of “Well, why don't you try something with a little bit lower THC, higher terpenes, you may find that that is an overall stonier, better experience than just that super high THC, lower terpene experience.” And like you said we see in blind judging competitions, people do actually prefer that low to moderate level of THC with the high terpene concentration and to try to explain that from a kind of biochemical standpoint, we can talk about the way that terpenes and cannabinoids actually absorb through our physiology in that all of the compounds need to enter the brain in order to bind to our receptors to cause the kind of psychoactive effect, if that is what we're looking for. And what exists around the brain is called the blood-brain barrier, and it exists to keep large, potentially toxic compounds out of the brain because the brain is arguably one of our most important organs and so it doesn't want anything nasty getting in there, but we also need things like gases and food to get into our brain so that it can continue to thrive. And so that's why this kind of barrier exists with these little kind of punctured holes through it, so it does allow smaller lipophilic, or fat soluble, compounds through and some gases as well. And so terpenes are really teeny, teeny tiny compounds and they can go through that blood-brain barrier easily - that's why when you smell a flower you like immediately have a certain sensation whereas when you are inhaling cannabinoids or consuming cannabinoids it can take a little while to kind of make you feel high right, when you're specifically smoking or vaporizing and that's because cannabinoids in comparison to terpenes are larger; they're a little clunky and so it takes them longer to get into the brain. Any time you cross this phospholipid bilayer it's called, this membrane, it will take a longer time if you are a larger molecule; you come up against a greater channel of resistance. And so because terpenes are teeny tiny, they can get through right away. Cannabinoids can pass through; it just takes them a little longer. When you have terpenes and cannabinoids together, the terpenes kind of act as the head goose - so I use this example of geese flying in a V-formation; that head goose is doing most of the work, they're setting that channel of resistance, and then the rest of the geese like fly behind them and ride that wave right? And so when we're talking about passing through the blood-brain barrier, terpenes can act as that head goose - they can set that channel of resistance to a relatively low number and the cannabinoids can kind of ride in that wave and more can get through the blood-brain barrier into the brain to cause an effect. (Interesting) And so that was like some science right there, but that is, we can think that maybe that's part of the reason why people are experiencing these like really like psychoactive, stony, well-rounded experiences with the lower THC numbers and the higher terpene numbers as compared to just the higher THC numbers and the lower terpene numbers. They're kind of not getting what they're necessarily looking for.
Wayne: Interesting, so it's almost you know common word is bioavailability someone's making the can't take cannabinoids more bioavailable to enter through using terpenes and Entourage Effect with them, (Exactly, exactly) so it might be a better bang for your buck, literally can be more effective to go for higher terpenes? (Mm-hmm) Can there be a flower that tests around like 32% THC and have like high terpene profile or is there a trade-off when you get into that upper, you know, 20s 30% THC?
Emma: Yeah, there's typically a trade-off, because it is a percentage of a whole, right? So anytime you increase one area’s percentage you have to sacrifice percentage somewhere else. Theoretically you could, I haven't seen that yet the highest total terpene percentage I've seen is 11% just crazy high and I believe the cannabinoid percentage was in like low to mid 20s so still pretty substantial maybe like 23 or 24 or something like that. But I haven't seen like a THC percentage that surpassed 30 and that also delivered that super high total terpene concentration.
Wayne: Okay. So if a consumer goes into a dispensary or a store, all flower is full spectrum then? (Yes) It's got the whole everything that came with the flower is there. What should they ask if they're looking for terpene results, are those normally displayed? How do they ask the budtender to know what that spectrum is for the flower, and kind of make their buying decision on what works for them or start to figure out what works for them for that matter?
Emma: Hmm, definitely ask for terpene results if you don't see them displayed, some shops will display them, some shops have even started displaying the total terpene concentration with the three or four most dominant terpenes, which is awesome. Other shops are not quite there yet, and they unfortunately may not have terpene results on hand - so terpene testing is not required and so you may walk into a shop and ask for terpene results and they may not have any, but you could still definitely request to see the lab results because it should have at least the potency results, and so you may be able to look for the minor cannabinoids in there. And if your shop, if your local neighborhood shop doesn't have terpene results, ask them why. Really, it starts with the consumer kind of demanding what they want, it is a consumer driven market and so if you go into a shop and ask for terpenes, they don't have it, ask them why and maybe request that the next time, you’d love to see a strain on the shelf that did come with terpene results.
Wayne: Yeah, and how does a consumer tell; so there's the flower that's full spectrum, what about other products and, you know, extracts, concentrates, edibles - how does a consumer know if that product is full spectrum when they go to purchase?
Emma: So definitely ask your budtender, also look at the packaging. If it is a company who is taking the time to really create that full spectrum product, extract, whatever it may be, they usually put it on the packaging, they'll usually say full spectrum or whole plant - that's another good kind of name to look for. And again, you could ask for terpene results for these extracts or oils. Some companies will go that extra mile and get the terpene results for them, so you can really see, okay this is how much terpenes kind of made it through the extraction process, or just ask simply about the extraction process that the company does employ. If you can't get any information about if it is full-spectrum, if you can't get terpene results, ask your budtender, okay well how do they extract this, if it's a typical BHO extraction, probably not going to be full-spectrum. If you see something that says live resin, then that there is a good chance that you will get more terpenes in that extractor concentrate. If it is a CO2 process and the budtender says “Well yes they definitely do it low and slow, it's a low temp extraction”, probably get more end compounds in that as well.
Wayne: Okay, so there's certain processing techniques and hopefully the budtender’s familiar with that lend themselves more to full-spectrum and certain techniques not so much, but ideally the product end product could have just been terpene tested and potency tested and there's no confusion, you can see exactly what it is.
Emma: Exactly, and that's really why we need that data. Even with flower you could smell it and guess what terpenes are in there but really the only way to know is with that lab data.
Wayne: Yeah. I'd like to move the conversation to, you know, we've been talking about effects a lot in different ailments and there's these different, you know, profiles of cannabinoids and terpenes and flavonoids and to me, it's always coming back to an experience that you're trying to create for yourself. So if you're in pain, the experience would be no pain. If you're bored, the experience this is a terrible movie, I'm gonna enjoy this movie, you know, maybe a little bit high. (Laughter) So the staying on the effects and that theme, I think that's really important to have a conversation around different strains and strain names, and I think that's what a lot of consumers hear right now and there's still a lot of the, you know, Sativa strains and Indica strains and a consumers buying based off those because they're looking for a certain effect, and as you know we're coming out of the black market that seems to be the information we have and that's what we use to buy. Can you kind of break down those different strains, Sativa, Indica and maybe even the names and let consumers know maybe what they should be looking for or what they should be weighting their decisions on because of the strain so they are a little more informed about what those actually mean?
Emma: Definitely, yeah. One of my favorite topics, debunking this Indica/Sativa myth, because it is a problem when people are using these names to really find predictability and consistency in their effects and then they don't get it, that is inexcusable in my opinion because we do have something else to look for, which is the cannabinoids and the terpenes. And so for those who are unfamiliar, Indica and Sativa, they are terms that when they were originally created, they were defined by the way that the plant grew. And so they only talk about plant morphology - Indica growing really short and bushy, having broader leaves, having denser flowers. Sativa growing really tall and skinny, having loose flowers, skinny leaves. And then there's also this hybrid classification when the Sativa and Indica have been crossed, and so you have a plant with that mixed morphology - maybe it's medium height, maybe it has broad leaves but loose flowers, whatever it may be. At no point when these terms were created, and they were created in the 1700s by fathers of modern taxonomy, at no point did these philosophers, did these kind of new scientists, smoke or consume this Sativa or Indica and make note of like, “Whoa I'm feeling really energized off this Sativa” or “Oh man, I'm totally “in da couch” from this Indica”. There's no account of that, and so to be in this place now where the industry has kind of adopted these terms to correlate to consistent experience is nonsensical. It doesn't make sense. They are two completely different definitions -plant morphology, the way that a plant grows, does not determine the way it's going to make you feel. And even at one point, if at one point in history, these plants did correlate to consistent experience, they don't anymore and that is because everything on the market currently is a genetic hybrid - everything has been crossed so many times that we are now left with this really incredibly diverse gene pool within cannabis, which is awesome, it makes for really strong plants. And that is, that's because we have, are now coming out of this century long prohibition where all the breeding that was done, I mean there was no scientific legitimacy with it. It was like, you get a seed from a guy, you don't ask anything about it, you go plant it. You got a-if you're lucky enough to get a plant from somebody, again, you're not keeping logs of who you're getting this from, or even of the names or the type of plant, because everything's kind of underground. And so, there's a lot of confusion now with strain names in that there are many strain names that actually don't correlate to the genetics that was of the original strain name. And that's because, I mean again there's no legitimacy or accountability in that. I mean growers could rename a strain if they wanted, they could rename a strain something that they thought was funny, they could they could even like look at a strain and be like, “You know what, I'm gonna rename it Durbin Poison or Super Silver Haze because it's really hot on the market right now and I just want to sell more of it” and it's created this problem in cannabis where, yes, we have this really diverse amazing gene pool, leads to really strong plants with diverse chemotypes, diverse cannabinoids terpenes, but there's this extreme lack of predictability and consistency in the medicine. There's no stable genetic lines, meaning you can't like go into, of course you can't go into a store but if you could let's say theoretically, and buy like a pack of like Girl Scout cookie seeds in a stable genetic line, each of those seeds will exactly the same thing. It's like if you go into a store and buy heirloom tomato seeds you're going to get exactly the same thing out of every single see – that, we are nowhere near that with cannabis yet because of this incredible genetic diversity and also this like strain name game. And when we talk about consumer experience and consumers being able to find that predictability and consistency in an experience - of course they're going to look to strain names because it's what they know, it's what is displayed, it's what's talked about most often, but unfortunately the Cherry Kush that you got from one dispensary, it could be very different than the Cherry Kush that you got from, that you could go get from the dispensary down the street. And so, instead of looking to strain names, which are great marketing tools don't get me wrong, but they don't describe experience at all. And instead of looking to Indica/Sativa as well, we should be looking to the actual compounds that we are consuming, cannabinoids, terpenes, because those are the compounds that we are actually inhaling, ingesting, that are binding to our receptors, that are causing an experience. And so they are the ones that will allow us to be able to deliver, at least close to predictable or consistent experiences for people.
Wayne: Okay, so strain names and the Sativa/Indica - really no correlation to effects. And is it also true if two growers started with Blue Dream, and let's say it genetically was exactly the same seed came from the same source, if one of those was grown in two different ways, maybe one indoor one outdoor, those would also produce different profiles inside the plant as well is that (Definitely) true too? So even the same strain name (Definitely) doesn't mean that it is the same genetics, doesn't mean (Exactly!) it will be consistent.
Emma: And I mean, I think of it in terms of like humans, right? If you had two identical twins, separated at birth, and one was grown up in a certain environment where they were fed only like health food and they were made to exercise every day, and the other one only had junk food and never exercised, they would lead two very different lives, it would become two very different people, no matter the fact that they had identical genetics - same kind of idea with cannabis.
Wayne: Yeah, so it really comes back to, you know, strain name, no consistency there, and to solve that, it's really a cannabinoid potency test and a terpene test on the flower and maybe one day flavonoids as well.
Emma: Yeah, yeah, and even something else, you know, there's a lot yet to uncover about the cannabis matrix, but we know enough right now to move beyond this Sativa/Indica false dichotomy, and move into a more scientific, legitimate way of looking at this plant.
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