#5: It's a Hemp Thing

THE HEMP RENAISSANCE
by Alice O’Leary Randall
Marijuana, Mary Jane, pot,
ganja, dank, weed … cannabis
has more names than you can count.
Indeed, according to Wikipedia,
cannabis has “more than 1,200 slang
terms.” And many of those terms
have entered the modern network of
medical cannabis dispensaries thus
presenting a bewildering array of
product to the thousands of medical
cannabis users who are flocking to
this ancient and venerable plant.
But there is one term for cannabis
that is not just slang, it describes
a variant of the plant that has reemerged
on the cannabis stage and
given us a new and exciting array of
products: that term is “Hemp.”
Predominantly used in industry,
hemp has also found its way into
the medical cannabis debate and
this has caused confusion in recent
years. In the U.S., hemp is defined
as cannabis having less than 0.3%
delta-9 THC, the cannabinoid that
causes people to “get high.” This low
THC content was codified into law
in the 2014 U.S. Farm Bill and this
has allowed the hemp movement to
make great strides with respect to
re-introducing legal hemp into the
U.S. market. Concurrently, scientific
research with cannabidiol (CBD),
revealed numerous therapeutic
applications. Hemp farmers began
experimenting with their plants,
boosting the CBD content and
developing CBD products in
many forms. Today, CBD specific
products made from hemp can be
found in trendy grocery stores and,
most significantly, online at specific
websites and even Amazon.com.
These developments, while exciting,
have also created massive confusion
among consumers since all hemp
is cannabis but not all cannabis is
hemp. Therein lies the difference.
Hemp is legal and currently grown in
34 states, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
(The NCSL website has an excellent
explanation of the history of hemp
laws in the U.S.)
In this issue of Mary’s Primer the
focus is on hemp grown specifically
for its CBD content and converted
into tinctures, salves, patches,
compounds, pills and other
formulations which allow individuals
to use the CBD as a supplement
or remedy for health and medical
conditions.
When it comes to CBD the most
frequent question becomes: is
CBD from hemp different from
CBD derived from the more
traditional cannabis plant? The
simple answer is: no. A molecule
is a molecule regardless of which
plant the molecule is taken from.
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