THC-O acetate is a relatively new compound to be found on the legal cannabis market, however its existence has been known for perhaps about 70 years, though in some inauspicious contexts. From 1947 until 1974 the U.S. Army conducted biochemical weapons and riot control research at the Edgewood Arsenal facility in Maryland. Aside from 10 analogues of cannabis tried as different incapacitant (THC-O being one of them), some volunteer service members were also exposed to large amounts of LSD, MDMA and phencyclidine (PCP).  THC-O was found to produce twice the amount of ataxia (loss of coordination of voluntary muscular movement)...

House Bill 617 is, verbatim from the General Assembly, "[A]n act to legalize and regulate the sale, possession, and use of cannabis in North Carolina: which was filed, humorously enough, on 4/20/2021. HB 617 states in finding 1, "Cannabis prohibition, like alcohol prohibition before it, has been a wasteful and destructive failure." The findings go on to proclaim a necessity of regulation to "protect consumers." Finding 2 states that the legislature realizes that thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of tax revenue could be created. Finding 3 and highlights the systemic racism that is inherent in the criminalization of cannabis, citing a 2020...

The Vape Shipping Ban enacted in late December 2020 was last-minute thrown into a COVID-19 relief package as an amendment to the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act. The PACT Act was an extension of the Jenkins Act of 1949, which was passed to prevent cigarette trafficking and made illegal interstate cigarette trafficking a federal crime. This puts PACT Act 2.0 under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (and Explosives), the ATF. In this bill is the Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), which presupposes that all cartridges are for nicotine use, and the Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes...

Cannabigerol (CBG), "The mother of all cannabinoids," is one of the many cannabinoids found in the Cannabis Sativa plant. CBG is lesser known than its famous cannabinoid cousins CBD and THC, but it has properties that are unique to it as a therapeutic compound. CBG was discovered in the 1960s but most of the research conducted on it has been within the last decade, due to its relative scarcity and small concentrations in the plant.   So what is CBG? Cannabinoids all start off as Cannabigerol, or CBG. CBG’s precursor, cannabigerolic acid, or (CBGa) is the primary cannabinoid. It is non-psychoactive...

The Mayo Clinic defines Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a relatively new diagnosis of illness. The first systematic studies of PTSD began during and after World War I, as it had then been called shell-shock or battle fatigue, as characteristic symptoms began to show similarities in soldiers who had seen intense combat. Now it is known that any traumatic event can...

For about 20 years, science has been testing CBD as an adjunct therapy for cancer treatment. In almost all cases, from colon cancer to breast cancer, CBD has been found to conclusively help shrink tumors and stop or slow metastasis. As a natural, non-toxic form of cancer treatment, CBD has shown promising results and hopefully will be widely accepted into medical and especially oncological practices in the near future.  Cannabidiol was listed as a Schedule I drug until 2018, the vast majority its clinical studies on cancer treatment have been conducted on lab mice or human cells. Now that it is...

In a recent Ted Talk (2020), Yasmin Hurd, PhD, made a compelling call for federal funding to research the efficacy of CBD in treating opioid addiction. Opioid addiction is sandbagging the United States economy by $200 billion a year in lost productivity, tax-funded incarceration, healthcare and addiction treatment costs. The failing war on drugs is costing taxpayers $51 billion annually. More Americans have died by drug overdose in the last 20 years than all the combat related deaths of Americans in all of its wars combined. How we got here is a scenario of negligent overprescribing of prescription opioids. According...

If you're like me, you'd like to travel again soon: seeing tourist attractions, trying the local cuisine, using those five language phrases I learned on the plane. And for some reason, everywhere I go, I encounter cannabis. I haven't been to Amsterdam yet--the gold standard of cannabis destinations. But I imagine it would be just like how friends have described it to me: a clean, bicycle friendly city, with little kaffe shops that specialize in cannabis. Maybe stop by the Rembrandt and Van Gogh museums after consuming mass quantities. The hashish in Portugal is phenomenal; a good chunk of it comes...

Delta-8 THC has become all the rage, especially in places where cannabis is still illegal. Delta-8 THC is chemically very similar to Delta-9 THC, and differs by one chemical double-bond that is on the 8th carbon chain as opposed to the 9th. Delta-8 THC binds to the CB1 receptor in the endocannabinoid system (ECS), just like Delta-9 THC. The CB1 receptor is responsible for mediating most of the psychotropic effects of THC. Delta-8 THC has all of the medicinal properties of its sibling, Delta-9 THC. Delta-9 THC is one of the main cannabinoids out of over 100 cannabinoids found in...

Four Easy and Effective Ways to Add Hemp CBD Into Your Wellness Routine Are you tired of hearing how important it is to incorporate that natural product or ingredient into your wellness routine? If you are, we don’t blame you. The wellness market is oversaturated with so many must-haves and, after a while, you start to feel numb to new and actually helpful products. If you are picky about adding new products into your daily routine, you might have been skeptical about including hemp-derived CBD. Reports show that one in seven Americans uses CBD-based products, primarily for pain, anxiety, and...

There may be a beam of hope in the global pandemic’s darkness brought on by COVID-19 – a virus that causes acute respiratory distress and inflammation. Researchers are hoping to use CBD as a treatment for COVID-19 to relieve some of this virus’ more severe outcomes. Researchers and medical experts from the Dental College of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) at Augusta University have recently uncovered some promising findings. They discovered that, while still not proven, CBD may help manage some of the acute inflammation brought on by the symptoms of COVID-19 that often result in organ...

Since the passage of the Hemp Farming Act in 2018 there has been such a flood of cannabidiol (CBD) products that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by this burgeoning market. So, where to start with CBD?  CBD can be ingested, smoked as flower, or applied topically; it all depends on what your needs are and discovering an intake method that works best for you. CBD is a non-psychoactive phytocannabinoid of the cannabis plant with enormous healing potential. As shown below, CBD and THC have practically the same molecular structures, though their bondings are different.  CBD interacts with the CB1 and...