I’ve always loved the book title: If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere Else. Similarly, if you don’t know what to look for in your cannabis medicine, you’ll probably find something else. In addition, there are a lot of products that simply don’t provide enough information for you to make an informed choice.
Organically formulated, tested and grown is important as cannabis is a wonderful concentrator of what’s in the soil, including impurities. It is so good, in fact, that it can be used to clean up soils from heavy metal contamination. This may be good for the soil, but not for medicine. We want your medicine to clean from the start.
Although all of the cannabis plant has benefits from Omega 3 fatty acids, to fiber and phytonutrients, the flower, or bud contains the highest concentrations of cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids, or the medicinal components of the plant. If the cannabis flower is not pollinated, or is virgin, it focuses on producing more of these cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids. If the flower becomes pollinated, it concentrates is efforts on seed production, which have little, if any of the medicinal cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids.
While there are those who believe that it is best to isolate the chemical component of the cannabis plant that has benefit and leave the rest behind so that you only consume what it needed for any given condition, there is substantial evidence to support that the whole plant, as close to the way mother nature made it, works best. We believe this is the case, and we formulate from the whole flower. We take advantage of the entourage effect of the more than 400 components in cannabis and believe that the whole plant simply works better than the sum of its components.
Clearly, there can be some benefit from isolates of cannabis. However, talk with experienced clinicians and patients and very quickly, I believe you will find that the whole plant, used with guidance and knowledge of the cannabinoid, terpene and flavonoid profile, is far more effective and with fewer side effects. Simply put, it’s tough to beat Mother Nature.
Cannabis, marijuana and hemp are all the same plant, with the legal difference being the concentration of the cannabinoid THC, or delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol. In the past, hemp was grown more for its oil and fiber and marijuana was cultivated more for the recreational use of its THC, but they are all the same plant and can be cultivated to meet specific needs, in much the same way canines are dogs and be bread for different purposes.
Now that the 2018 Farm Bill has been signed into law, products, including food and supplements, from hemp, at least those produced in Colorado, are now federally legal in all fifty states.
To assure a clean product, companies must test for heavy metals, pesticides, and residual solvents. To allow appropriate use, CBD operations should test for the predominant cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids so that clinicians and patients alike can take advantage of the entourage effect and choose their best product.
Written by Dr. Michael Steward, Chief Medical Officer- https://endourage.com/affiliate-partner/mjcom
