CANNABIS

Cannabis Sativa.

Cannabis sativa might just be the most famous plant species on the planet. Cannabinoid products holds a great power to alleviate human suffering. There are no words to describe how important this substance is for our race in terms of sanity, compassion and a highly rational alternative.

The human body has natural receptors for cannabis compounds The body is actively looking for these compounds. Called the Endocannabinoid System.

If cannabis has no health benefits. Why has the USA government patented it ?

Why is Big Pharma, which favour patent-able isolates chasing cannabis ?

US Patent 6,630,507 Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants

US Patent 6,630,507

CLICK HERE FOR CANCER RESEARCH RESULTS Referances

While some people have ignored this mysterious yet beautiful plant, cannabis has received an overwhelming amount of attention from others. Since early civilization, humans have been artificially selecting food plants like maize, peaches, pears, wheat, and rice to increase quality and yield. Yet, along side these popular foods, cannabis plants have also been selected, crossed, grown, and harvested. The founder of ethnobotany Richard E. Schultes suggested that cannabis has always deserved more positive recognition than the plant has received, since humans have been using cannabis products for 10,000 years or more. More recently, Robert C. Clarke and Mark D. Merlin have provided an extensive description of the amazing history of cannabis in their book, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany. Of course, the scale of importance and outright visibility that cannabis has played in societies varies across the world. Regardless, the botany of cannabis has been studied for several millennia. Wild cannabis that was first gathered and consumed by people undoubtedly produced a pleasant taste, perhaps even a euphoric feeling-since humans have continued the breeding tradition for so many thousands of years. Over that time the overall features of the plant have changed little, still having palmately compound leaves and amazingly tough fibers. Although the use of its fiber dates back several thousand years, a recent study suggests cannabis was being consumed 2,700 years ago by shamans in central China. One can imagine the impact cannabis made on its original discoverers. In a time when plants were constantly being investigated for their medicinal properties, cannabis would surely have captured attention. The various biochemical pathways that give way to the diversity of cannabis metabolites are something of a divine quality, as must have been thought by the first discoverers..The cultivation of this plant, native from Central Asia, and its use has been spread all over the world by man since thousands of years as a source of food, energy, fibre and medicinal or narcotic preparations.

Whether for medical reasons, recreational or therapeutic use; controlling our usage of a substance is very important. In the first case, it permits the individual to set a posology (quantity administered, frequency of doses, and treatment time), to establish the efficacy and the relationship between the active principles and the recovery of a individual from an illness. With regard to its recreational or therapeutic use, monitoring the amount of substance helps us to become aware of our habits as consumers, above all in relation to tolerance, effect and craving. In this way we can become aware of some factors that condition our usage such as pain, stress, happiness, fear, and energy level, among others.

Cannabis has been touted as a near-panacea for everything from pain to chemotherapy-induced nausea to HIV and cancer-induced cachexia (weight loss) to even curing cancer itself. There’s a lot of hype out there, and there are a lot of claims that sometimes go viral on various social media, even though the evidence to support the claims is often, to put it mildly, less than rigorous. Enthusiasm for cannabis as a cure-all has far outstripped existing evidence.

The cannabis industry is new and requires a lot of research and data collection,

Cannabis is not a cure for all it can activate systems in the body and provide compounds found no where else for the body to heal its self without getting high,

Cannabis is an annual plant, which belongs to the family Cannabaceae. There are only 2 genera in this family: Cannabis and Humulus. While in Humulus only one species is recognised, namely Lupulus.

In Cannabis different opinions support the concepts for a mono or poly species.

Linnaeus (1753) considered only one species, Sativa.

McPartland (2002) described 4 species, Sativa , Indica , Ruderalis and Afghanica .

Hillig (2005) proposed 7 species, Ruderalis , Sativa , Spontanea , Kafiristanica , Indica , Afghanica and Chinensis .

Indicas: (i.e. short, compact, and high yielding)

Indica plants are short, bushy, mature early, have more chlorophyll and less accessory pigments (accessory pigments protect the plant from excessive light).

As Indica strains have more chlorophyll than sativa they grow and mature faster.

Sativas: (i.e. tall, high quality bud, and lower yielding)

Sativa plants are taller, take longer to mature, have less chlorophyll and more accessory pigments (accessory pigments protect the plant from excessive light).

As Sativa strains have less chlorophyll than Indica they take longer to grow, mature, and require more light.

Ruderalis: (auto flowering)

Cannabis Ruderalis: is tentatively described as the third type of cannabis, as botanists are unsure whether it qualifies as a species in its own right. Ruderalis is an uncultivated strain native to Russia, central Europe and central Asia and is adapted to the harsher environments found in these locations. Whether seen as a variation on the single cannabis species or as a distinct species in itself, Ruderalis types of cannabis are most likely descended from Indica varieties which, in turn, are probably descended from Sativas.

A typical Cannabis Ruderalis plant is very short in height, often between 30cm and 80cm when fully grown. It produces only a few branches and has wide, fat-bladed leaves, similar to those of Cannabis Indica. Once flowering begins, Ruderalis will gain even less height than an Indica strain.

The most notable characteristic of the Ruderalis strain is its capacity to flower (and therefore reproduce) according to an individual plant's age, independent of the photoperiod in which it is growing.

The differences between these three in their growing and reproductive patterns can be linked to the vastly different environments encountered by the original tropical phenotype Cannabis Sativa L. As it spread further and further north of the equator after the last ice age, the different types evolved to survive in new climates. Human intervention and agriculture has also had significant effects on Indica and Sativa gene-pools, but much less influence on wild Ruderalis

Hybrids: (i.e. 50/50 or 60/40 cross)

Hybrid plants have a combination of Indica and Sativa or Ruderalis growth characteristics which are relative to a strain of plant.

When mixing true breeding strains you end up with heterozygous strains. The phenotypes in these will vary a little more than the homozygous parents. A heterozygous strain is considered to be a hybrid. An F1, F2, F3 etc are all hybrids!

F1 hybrid - is the first generation of a cross between any two unrelated seed lines in the creation of a hybrid. F1 hybrids can be uniform or variable depending on the parent stock used.

Nevertheless, the tendency in literature is to refer to all types of cannabis as Cannabis Sativa L. with a variety name indicating the characteristics of the plant.

Cannabis is a dioecious plant, i.e. it bears male and female flowers on separate plants. The male plant bears staminate flowers and the female plant pistillate flowers which eventually develop into the fruit and achenes (seeds). The sole function of male plants is to pollinate the females. Generally, the male plants commence flowering slightly before the females. During a few weeks the males produce abundant anthers that split open, enabling passing air currents to transfer the released pollen to the pistillate flowers. Soon after pollination, male plants wither and die, leaving the females maximum space, nutrients and water to produce a healthy crop of viable seeds. As result of special breeding, monoecious plants bearing both male and female flowers arose frequently in varieties developed for fiber production. The pistillate flowers consist of an ovary surrounded by a calyx with 2 pistils which trap passing pollen (Clarke, 1981; Raman, 1998). Each calyx is covered with glandular hairs (glandular trichomes), a highly specialized secretory tissue (Werker, 2000). In cannabis, these glandular trichomes are also present on bracts, leaves and on the underside of the anther lobes from male flowers (Mahlberg 1984).

The phytochemistry in cannabis is very complex; more than 480 compounds have been identified (ElSohly and Slade, 2005) representing different chemical classes. Some belong to primary metabolism, e.g. amino acids, fatty acids and steroids, while cannabinoids, flavonoids, stilbenoids, terpenoids, lignans and alkaloids represent secondary metabolites. The concentrations of these compounds depend on tissue type, age, variety, growth conditions (nutrition, humidity and light levels), harvest time and storage conditions (Keller 2001; Kushima 1980; Roos 1996). The production of cannabinoids increases in plants under stress (Pate, 1999).

Treatments using cannabis have been found to be more effective when using a full range of compounds. There are several drugs which have isolated cannabinoids either derived naturally or syntheticly and have not preformed as expected.

GMO Cannabis

Cannabis made from genetically modified seed science and used by the likes of GW UK, some call this synthetic Cannabis mostly from seeds by Hortapharm BV in the Netherland and many other companies.

GW Pharmaceuticals, a British firm at the forefront of developing cannabis-based medications, utilises a proprietary cultivar known as ‘Grace,’ which measures around seven percent cannabidiol and sub-0.3 percent THC. ‘Grace’ is grown indoors in the United Kingdom. Bucking the Big Pharma trend while establishing a foothold in that sphere, GW is researching whole plant CBD-THC combinations, as well as cannabis-derived isolates.

Click to open GW Early Days

The GMO Biotech Cannabis has seen deaths (Epidiolex) in trials that have ‘passed’ and other GMO (like Sativex) have failed trials and tests.

Medical companies want GMO stains as they can then patent them.Thus giving them control over the market.

Single-molecule compounds are the preferred domain of Big Pharma, which favour patent-able isolates over “crude” whole plant synergies.

Single-molecule medicine is the predominant corporate way, the Big Pharma way, but it’s not the only way, and there’s scant evidence that it’s the best way to benefit from cannabis therapeutics.

Limited by single-molecule dogma and allergic to plant compounds that can’t be patented, Big Pharma is way behind the curve with respect to cannabis therapeutics. For all its billions, Big Pharma hasn’t done much for children with intractable epilepsy. Little Charlotte Figi in Colorado, featured on CNN, wasn’t helped by Big Pharma. It was oil from a resinous CBD-rich cannabis plant that stopped her chronic seizures and saved her life. When a new modified Cannabis strain called Charlotte’s Web was born. It had very low THC and very high CBD. Unfortunately, over time it was reported that Charlotte needed a different strain due to the low potency of THC meaning the CBD did not work as well, and due to what is believed a tolerance was built up to the very low THC. This problem has been repeated by many leading people to believe Dravet syndrome would be effectively an ECS deficiency, when CBD stops the seizures.

Proving strong full spectrum Cannabis products work when the GMO biotech strains do not along with many more cases.