green tonic
Cupping the powdery, pretty flower, the trichomes sparkling on the stick, I can’t believe that, in the modern era, cannabis is seen as toxic, destructive, unwholesome. This glittery, sticky substance on the bud, purely existing to protect the plant from animals and insects, packed with cannabinoids and terpenes, is seen as precarious.
Before, it was seen as a curative, a tonic. At least, this is what I read in “Cannabis and CBD For Health And Wellness: An Essential Guide for Using Nature’s Medicine to Relieve Stress, Anxiety, Chronic Pain, Inflammation, and More” by Aliza Sherman and Dr. Junella Chin, a book I picked up after seeing it featured in “CannabisNow”, which called it one of the best introductory books written by a doctor and cannabis entrepreneur/innovator/commentator. Two women coming together to talk alternative medicine.
Cannabis originated in Central Asia and was first recorded in the 1800s BCE, even used in religious rituals. By 1779, doctors were writing about its medicinal benefits. Hemp seeds, rich in protein and omega fatty acids, were used to treat health problems, and the plant was grown at Jamestown to produce rope, paper, and textiles.
In 1906, Congress established the FDA, which began listing addictive ingredients on product labels; cannabis became one of them. After the Mexican Revolution in 1910, minorities brought cannabis over the border, and the plant became forever associated with them, its popularity (and the backlash against it) sprouting by 1937.
That year, the Marijuana Tax Act made non-medical cannabis illegal. Rather than criminalizing possession or use of medical marijuana outright, it imposed a bundle of penalties. Much of the attack on cannabis stemmed from the threat it posed to corporations — the industrial hemp industry had the potential to produce the same goods corporations were already manufacturing, like fuel.
In 1970, Nixon passed the Controlled Substances Act, which categorized drugs into schedules. Even medical cannabis was placed in Schedule I.
(Hemp and cannabis are both part of the Cannabaceae family. The difference lies in genetics and cultivation method, to be legal, hemp-derived products, which contain more CBD, must have less than 0.3% THC per dry weight.)
Despite the legal history, the body has its own relationship with cannabis, the endocannabinoid system, or ECS: a patchwork of receptors, endogenous cannabinoids (“endogenous” meaning produced naturally inside the body), and enzymes that break those cannabinoids down after they’ve done their job. The ECS overlays every other system in the body, modulating both mental and physical function, yet it’s remained under-researched.
Research on the plant itself didn’t really begin until the 1980s. That decade brought the discovery of two receptors:
• CB1 — involved with the brain and nervous system
• CB2 — involved with the immune system
Endocannabinoids act as keys that unlock these receptors, detecting molecules outside cells and activating signals inside them. Cannabis targets both CB1 and CB2 with fewer negative side effects than typical pharmaceuticals.
Phytocannabinoids, plant-based cannabinoids, bind to CB1 and CB2 when consumed, stimulating and nourishing the ECS. Interestingly, black truffles, cacao, and black pepper also contain phytocannabinoids and enzymes that affect the ECS.
Every cannabinoid starts as the raw acid CBGA. When exposed to heat, an enzymatic process converts CBGA into the acid forms of THC, CBD, and CBC (THCA and CBDA). THCA exists in the raw plant and must be decarboxylated through UV light or heat to become active, both THCA and THCV are more psychotropic in this process.
CBD, meanwhile, doesn’t bind to CB2 receptors itself but influences how other compounds bind to them — including reducing how THC binds to CB1. CBD is psychoactive (it affects the brain), while THC is psychotropic.
Terpenes are hydrocarbons (hydrogen-carbon molecules) found in medicinal plants, and they’re the only compounds besides cannabinoids that bind to CB1 and CB2 receptors. Terpenes and cannabinoids work together to create the entourage effect, since terpenes enhance and modify how cannabinoids act. Terpene content varies from cultivar to chemovar, and terpenes can be stripped out during extraction, or reintroduced afterward.
Cannabis has three subspecies:
• Cannabis sativa — originating in Eastern Asia
• Cannabis indica
• Cannabis ruderalis — low THC, low resin, native to central Eastern Europe and Russia
Decades of selective breeding have made pure sativa or indica strains hard to find, since growers crossbred them to produce specific effects for consumers and patients.
Scientists and doctors tend to use the term chemovar, based on chemotype — the chemical compounds in a given strain, used to breed for a specific cannabinoid or terpene makeup. Breeders and growers, on the other hand, prefer cultivar (“cultivated variety”), since their focus is on cultivating female flowering plants to produce budding flowers, where trichomes form along the outer surface.
Growing the plant takes 3–5 months. Indoor cultivation flowers faster; indica subspecies take longer to grow. Once harvested, the female flower (bud) goes through three steps: sorting, drying (5–15 days), and curing, followed by trimming.
Cannabis extracts pull compound-rich terpenes from the plant, resulting in something more concentrated and potent than dried flower. A few forms:
• Whole plant / full-spectrum extracts — made using the entire plant
• CBD-heavy concentrates — either from naturally CBD-dominant strains or isolated during extraction
• CO2 oil — a solventless extraction method
• Rosin — the sap pressed from flowers, also solventless
• Hash — another solventless concentrate
• Tinctures — alcohol- or oil-based liquid concentrates
Because cannabinoids store well in fats, extracts infused into something like butter tend to absorb more effectively in the body.
Makes me want to make cannabutter!
Leafing through ganja’s storied past, soaking up this science like a sponge, while simultaneously watching the 1999 documentary “Grass”, has been edifying, equipping me with the basics as I now leaf through “CannaCurious” or “Weed World”, their glossy pages of green tonic photography popping off the page.