HEMP VS CANNABIS – THE REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE

hemp vs cannabis - what is the difference?

One of the many questions you may have is, what’s about the difference between the common terms. Let’s talk about Hemp vs Cannabis. In contrast to controlled administrative scenery, the gap between hemp and other types of Cannabis is widening.

Compared to CBD-rich cannabis throughout the plant, industrial Cannabis grown for fiber or seeds generally has a lower cannabinoid content. If you are living in a country where the use of marijuana is medically legal and easily available on the market, you should search for cannabis CBD products.

CBD remains a friend of humanity long before it becomes documented.It was used as giving fiber for thread and garments, providing nutritional seeds, and its leaves and flowers for different medical purposes. During the Neolithic period, our ancestors invented usage of each part of CBD, which was one of the first crops to be grown and collected about 12,000 years ago.

There are only two kinds of CBD in botany. Where hemp plants are grown for fiber and seed oil, the drug plant contains also THC, which is know for its intoxicating properties and is widely used as recreational drug or also legal prescription medication. The content of resin is the main diference between a hemp and drug plant. The term marijuana is just the conversational name for the flower of the plant, containing higher amounts of resin in the flowers. 

Industrial manufactured cannabis is commonly grown from a pedigree seed source and produces up to 100 tall, slender, bamboo-like plants on every every square meter. These plants are collected through machines and used in the manufacturing facilities for different products like paper, clothes, or seed oils for consumption. 

In contrast, narcotic, mostly ilegal plants with a higher THC content, are usually grown from asexual clones, only one or two plants per one square meter. The flowers are cuted, dried, pruned, and cured by hand. This flowers are used for their medicinal and narcotic effects.

It’s All About the Resin

In the USA, Marijuana is set by the resin content of the plant by the US federal law.
In the 1970 controlled substance act (CSA), marihuana was mentioned three times in a two sentence definition. The 1970 act was word to word copied from the marihuana tax act from 1937.

‘Marihuana’ term means every single part of Cannabis Sativa L. plant. Every seed, salt, resin extracted from all parts of the plant, compund, mixture is described as marihuana. Mature stalks of such plant are not called like that.

The term is not including fiber produced from mature stalks, oil and edibles made of that stalks, every salt, derivative, compund and more, made of mature stalks included.
The CSA affirms, that some parts of the plant (sterilized seeds, mature stalks), are not included in the term marihuana.

The leaves, resin and the flowers were not included in this exception.

hemp vs cannabis

All derivatives from resin and the resin itself were categorized as strictly forbidden. Hemp stalk produced fiber and the unfertilized hampseed pressed oil got a pass, but every form of resin or its derivatives not.

The cannabis resin is present in the head of the small, mushroom-like shape trichomes, identified on the plant’s female flowers (buds) and also on the leaves. This sticky resin is full of tetra-hydro-cannabidiol) THC and CBD (cannabidiol). It also contains several hundreds of other elements (terpenes and cannabinoids) that helps to lower psychological distress in the human brain.

The oil extracted from the hemp seed is different from the CBD oil gained from leaves and flowers of the plant. There is no cannabidiol and THC in the hemp seed oil. Hemp seed oil is optimal to make high protein food and snacks, washing soap, paints and much more.

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A small measure of THC

From the beginning, the law enforcement understood that it is the resin and its content that differentiate marijuana from industrial hemp. At present, the federal law has recently added a new limitation, which claims that industrial hemp has to contain no more than 0.3 percent THC on a dry weight basis. Products that contain THC in that low concentration have lesser psychoactive effects.

hemp clothing

Let see where the 0.3% THC mark came from. The roots for that mark are in a 1976 taxonomic report made by Canadian scientists. The scientists never intended to make a limit between a hemp and a cannabis plant. According to to the current federal law, every concentration of more then 0.3% THC in a cannabis plant, is considered illegaly to grow. 

This estimated percentage was outlined in the Agricultural Act of 2014, notoriously known as the Farm Bill. This bill declared “industrial hemp” for the first time in the history of the U.S and was legally separated from marijuana. The »0.3% THC or less« establishment of domestic hemp was first enshrined in section 7606 of the Agricultural Act and later revived when the 2018 Farm Bill got approved by the US Congress.

Cannabis resin still remained undisclosed in the 2018 Farm Bill, which critics preferred to name as the ‘Keep Marijuana Illegal Bill.’ Calling a spade, the 0.3 percent THC figure is an irrational, euphoria-phobic artifact of reefer nonsense. Even though it lacks on a logical scientific basis, it is still regarded as the last criterion for cannabis prohibition. A misleading, out-dated policy, that interferes with enormous medical discoveries. It is also a resistance for the patients to have access to valuable therapeutic options, that can be extracted from herbs otherwise, with diverse combinations of CBD and THC.

Sourcing Cannabidiol (CBD)

Because of a huge public demand for CBD products, the US farm bill made a step forward. In the USA, today farmers can cultivate hemp in terms of commercial crops on the domestic soil.

On December 20 2018, hemp was taken down from the list of controlled substances, but cannabis remained a controlled product. Hemp products, including hemp-derived CBD oil, were also explicitly withdrawn by the farm bill. Till now, the FDA is a little skeptical about its off-label usage and is still stuck to the fact that hemp-derived CBD should not be declared as a legitimate food supplement.

HYDROCARBON EXTRACTION OF CBD OIL

At this time, CBD oil enriched with cannabidiol extract, with over 0.3 percent THC, is regarded as a potential drug in the list of Schedule 1 substance under federal law. It is quite obscure for regulators to differentiate between unconstitutional cannabis-derived CBD oil and the lawful, hemp-derived CBD oil, when the sole molecule i.e CBD, is the same in both products.

The most excellent cannabidiol oil is grown organically. The result of such growing is a high resin CBD cannabis, not same like low resin industrial hemp. To extract a small amount of CBD out of the industrial hemp, a very big amount of that hemp is needed.

Because hemp is a bio accumulator, hemp draws toxins from the soil to the plant. Thats not ideal for making ingestible oil products. That fact is rising the risk of contaminants in the end products.

Many times, farmers can get CBD oil also as byproduct from industrial hemp that was produced for some other purpose. The unused hemp can be also sold to companies, wich take the leftovers as biomass where they extract CBD. This kind of second extraction is called a dual use tactic. Its widespread and also not the best way to get a toxic free product. The hemp biomass is many times tainted with remains of pesticides or other toxic solvents wich are used to extract the CBD out of the hemp.
CBD isolate or heavy refind CBD paste made out of industrial hemp is not the same quality then other CBD-rich oil products.

Comparing high resin cannabis and industrial hemp shows, that industrial hemp is less chemically diverse then high resin cannabis. Industrial hemp is lacking the mix of terpens and secondary cannabinoids wich are all found in high resin cannabis. The compunds found in high resin cannabis enhances the therapeutic benefits of CBD and THC.

cannabis for health

After Hemp Vs Cannabis

Before the farm bill arrived in 2018, many low-resin industrial hemp CBD products were available through China and Europe as a distributor to America. After the farm bill, people in the USA are permitted to start hemp cultivation legally. So, it is convenient to get the best quality of cannabidiol products from different states in America like California, Louisiana, Vermont, Florida, Kentucky, Alaska, etc.

The most valuable and high quality source of CBD is from the cannabis plant containing 20 % CBD along with 1% of THC.

Sadly, after the legal cultivation of the cannabis plant, the amount of THC in that case is too high to enter in hemp category. Eventhough this combination is not making people high, it helps people suffering from depression, anxiety, and pain. This can do great to reduce all these problems.

The cannabis plant can be easily grown, a friendly crop that has no harmful effects on the environment.

The perceptions between hemp vs cannabis became a perception in todays regulatory field. American growers are now breeding high resin cannabis strains that satisfies the farm bill criteria with plants that contain less then 0.3% of THC and double digit CBD values. With that said, farmers in the USA today also grow high resin cannabis strains for medicinal or personal use.

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