When ingested in oil form, one of the most popular consumption methods, the effectiveness of CBD and THC becomes compromised.
A product can claim to contain large amounts of THC or CBD and that it will provide powerful benefits. But while this may be true, it doesn’t explain the complex process of how cannabis ends up absorbed through the bloodstream, which is known as bioavailability. When it comes to CBD and THC oils, the amount of that ends up absorbed in your blood is usually very little.
Bioavailability can be influenced by your body’s make up, physiological processes and, most importantly, the method in which you consume your cannabis. While recreational cannabis is more lax and can be adapted as needed, bioavailability is vital for the plant’s value as medicine. The more bioavailable the product is, the more accurate the dosage, and the less amount of it you’ll need for it to produce its intended effect.
When ingested in oil form, one of the most popular consumption methods, the effectiveness of CBD and THC becomes compromised. In fact, only about 6% of the THC or CBD present in these products ends up absorbed by the bloodstream.
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The body is made up of 60% water. When compounds are presented in oil form, their potency is affected since the water in our bodies and the oil in the product have trouble mixing. This is further increased by the fact that oil is usually ingested orally, absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract and later making its way to the liver, where it’s metabolized. After so many stops, the amounts of useful compound that end up in your bloodstream is limited.
For the most part, products that are smoked, inhaled, applied topically or absorbed through suppositories are the most effective of the bunch. While there’s pros and cons with each, products that are smoked work well since the lungs are highly permeable. Suppositories, even if they’re a little weird, produce among the strongest and longest lasting effects. Topical compounds, which are usually medicinal and for pain relieving purposes, work well since there are plenty of cannabinoids located under the surface of the skin.
There are some ways to trick your body into making the cannabis more effective. You can supplement your cannabis with healthy fats, such as hummus, coconut oil and avocado. You can also try butter and ice cream if you’re not feeling all that health conscious and are just looking for a good time.
Why? As we’ve reported before, cannabis contains fat soluble compounds, which means they break down more effectively in fat instead of water. This is why most edibles are high in fat: cookies, brownies, fudge, etc. Coconut oil has been demonstrated to be one of the best fats for absorbing THC molecules.
Your brain and your stomach are connected. By eating healthier, you can help yourself feel better and prevent negative mental health episodes.
Food has an incredible power over our bodies, providing us with energy but also affecting our moods, stress levels and even our mental health. While doctors in this part of the world don’t focus on lifestyle changes, everyone can benefit from a healthier diet and from making decisions that are more health conscious.
The pandemic has put mental health in the forefront of our minds. With so much stress surrounding us, it’s important to take care of our mental and physical health, using all the tools at our disposal as best as we can. This includes the food we eat.
Food is no substitute for medicine, but it can help you feel better. Author and psychiatrist Uma Naidoo explained to the Huffington Post that food is one mechanism that can help people prevent and cope with negative symptoms.
Naidoo explains the strong connection that exists between the brain and the stomach. When we’re stressed out or anxious, it’s common to feel nausea or a fluttering in our stomachs, which can confuse our bodies. The vagus nerve, which is part of our central nervous systems and controls our moods, digestion, and more, is responsible for this connection,
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“It’s not just as glib as you are what you eat, but that specific foods have either a positive effect or a negative effect,” said Naidoo.
Knowing the types of foods that affect us positively sounds more complicated than it is; by leaning towards fruits and veggies and other plants, you’ll provide your body with vitamins, mineral and antioxidants. Try to have vegetables with every meal, adding them in to dishes in creative ways in needed. Prebiotics and probiotics are also healthy, promoting the growth of good gut bacteria. These include yogurts and other fermented foods, like cheese, miso and kombucha.
If eating healthy gets confusing, limit your intake of fried and processed foods. Fast foods may be delicious and serve a certain purpose during our busy lives, but they cause the bad bacteria in your gut flare up, making it more likely for your belly to produce symptoms similar to those of anxiety and depression.
When battling these symptoms, try to eliminate all of the noise that’s in your body. Pinpoint the source of whatever is making you feel down, whether that’s a mental health issue or a physical one.
A long rumored story about marijuana’s most famous moment in the White House was confirmed by the former President himself.
Between the nation-shifting administrations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter’s presidency is sometimes lost in the historical shuffle. But like the recent example of Barack Obama, Carter used pop culture to endear himself to voters. If Obama was America’s first hip-hop president, Carter was our first rock n’ roll president.
A new documentary called Jimmy Carter: Rock N’ Roll President will be released this September and explores that very relationship. In the documentary’s trailer, Carter says things like, “Bob Dylan has been one of my best friends, along with Willie Nelson.”
Carter also confirmed the rumors about marijuana’s most famous moment in the White House — the time Willie Nelson smoked a joint with the President’s son atop the White House roof.
“When Willie Nelson wrote his autobiography, he confessed he smoked pot in the White House,” Carter says. “He says that his companion was one of the servants in the White House. Actually, it was one of my sons.”
Contrary to what you might expect, Nelson had hidden this nugget back when he wrote his 1988 autobiography. He describes sitting atop the White House roof late at night “with a beer in one hand and a fat Austin Torpedo in the other.” Nelson mentions a “companion on the roof” but doesn’t identify the person by name.
The truth started to slip out in the 21st century, first with “Willie Nelson: An Epic Life,” a biography written by Joe Nick Patoski. Nelson “climbed on the roof of the White House and smoked a joint with one of the Carter boys,” Patoski wrote.
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Savvy individuals started putting two and two together and realized exactly which Carter boy smoked a joint with Nelson — Chip Carter, Jimmy’s middle son. Chip had developed a personal friendship with NORML founder Keith Stroup and was “a marijuana smoker himself,” Stroup wrote in a recent article.
That fact was confirmed in a 2015 Willie Nelson profile by GQ. Journalist Chris Heath pressed Nelson about the rumors and the country singer finally gave up the ghost — yes, he smoked a joint with Chip on the White House roof. “It ain’t something you want to brag about, you know,” Nelson said.
Heath went one step further and called Chip (who now goes by James Early Carter III), who told him that Nelson had insisted keeping this story secret all those years.
“Well, he told me not to ever tell anybody,” Carter said.
Thanks to none other than his own dad, everyone will now be reminded of the truth — that a President’s son smoked a joint on the White House roof with cannabis icon Willie Nelson. And no one got in trouble for almost 50 years. As Nelson jokes in his autobiography, “I guess the roof of the White House is the safest place to smoke dope.”
“I think it would be unresponsive to the consumer, a bureaucratic nightmare, discourage innovation and kill large parts of the industry right off the bat,” said Sen. Daylin Leach.
Editors Note: This is an opinion piece.
I would like to say kudos to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf for finally calling on the Pennsylvania General Assembly to legalize adult-use cannabis. It would have been better if he had actually thought through what he was proposing and meant it.
Last week, the governor said that he would like to legalize cannabis in order to bring in more revenue for the state and he thinks that selling cannabis in the state liquor stores is the way to do it.
“My hope is that with the pandemic and the hit that we have taken to revenues that there might be a little more interest in it now. And I think that we have had a little more time to see what’s happening in places like Colorado with revenues for example. This might be one way to plug a hole….We have a state store system that would be an ideal way to distribute it,” said Wolf.
Wolf spoke about how he would like funds left over from the CARES Act and tax revenue from cannabis sales to help turn the tide of the pandemic induced recession that has hit the commonwealth, but Senator Daylin Leach, the sponsor of SB350 known as the “gold standard” for adult use legalization, calls the governor’s plan a nightmare.
“I think it would be unresponsive to the consumer, a bureaucratic nightmare, discourage innovation and kill large parts of the industry right off the bat. Sure, we could do it. We could do it in a way that is less profitable, less advantageous, we can do it in a way that is lesser all around. I don’t know why we would do this,” said Leach.
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Wolf’s proposal would make Pennsylvania the only state-run cannabis market in the country and we all know how well things go when the government takes over. If the state runs cannabis sales, it eliminates the retail market opportunity, a key driver of market competition, which means consumers will be the ones taking the hit in their pocketbooks. It will also constrain the product market, keeping out the smaller less capitalized brands, less flexibility in what brands will be sold and less chance of innovation.
Leach says that the governor’s plan is a political nonstarter and his state store announcement did more damage than good.
“He has made it (legalization) far less likely to pass. Republicans hate the state system, they are looking to shut down the state system, not expand their portfolio. Other than sign medical, he did nothing to help us pass medical. Wolf’s efforts to pass legalization have been clumsy and ham-handed enough.”
Knowing that Republicans are opposed, and every other state has passed on a government takeover of their cannabis markets, doesn’t it seem obvious that his proposal is a poison pill? Does it not seem intentionally designed to fail? There is plenty of precedents that makes it clear from every state why no government in its right mind would take this approach.
A senior’s body isn’t as strong as it once was, which can make exercise painful. CBD topicals can help them get past some of these barriers.
The magnificent mountains of the Pacific Northwest attracted Sylvia Cate to Portland, Oregon. She spent years scaling mountains and hiking for miles through the wilderness. Although the retired urban planner has hung up her mountaineering gear, she credits CBD topicals with keeping her on the hiking trails.
“Tendonitis. Arthritis. Metatarsal problems.” She ticks off the pain issues that were slowing her down before she discovered CBD topicals. “Now I just slather my feet in CBD lotion and into the hiking boots. My last hike was eight miles!”
Cate’s experience with using CBD to keep in shape is not unique. As Ellyn Ford, president of CBD Revolution, observes, “We started making cannabis topicals for our own pain.” In her estimation, “The Baby Boom is a generation of aging weekend warriors, and we’re all looking for relief so that we can stay in the game.”
Exercise is a key to longevity. However, a senior’s body isn’t as strong as it once was, which can make exercise painful. But Steven Phan, co-founder of Come Back Daily CBD, notes that using cannabidiol (CBD) as a topical can help them get past some of these barriers. “By interacting with our endocannabinoid system, CBD can be effective as an option to relieve pain.”
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Philip Blair, M.D. concurs. “The cool thing about CBD for seniors is how it can improve joint function before exercise and muscle aches afterwards. A side benefit is more restful sleep and better mood.”
Trista Okel, founder and CEO of Empower BodyCare, suggests that seniors can ease discomfort and inflammation caused by exercise by using CBD-infused topical products. She notes, “I’ve heard from more than one senior that CBD topical products allow for faster recovery time, more agility, and less discomfort overall.”
Okel recommends sticking to topical CBD products that are 3.5mg/mL and higher. When determining which CBD topical products to purchase, she highly recommend never purchasing any CBD products that don’t have the Certificates of Analysis (aka “test results”) for each batch of product readily available on the company’s website.
For those seniors who want use CBD tinctures, gel caps, and other CBD products that are taken internally, Phan cautions them to check with a medical doctor beforehand. ”Seniors should consult with their doctor before ingesting CBD like a sublingual oil if they are on any prescription medications.”
While we tend to associate hangovers with drinking, the symptoms can affect you without having consumed any alcohol.
Hangovers are terrible. Hundreds of wellness companies have looked for ways of curing their symptoms, developing home remedies and medications claiming to limit the potency of hangovers or prevent them from happening. So far, none have truly succeeded.
Hangovers are also hard to explain. While we know that they occur when we consume too much alcohol, sometimes this isn’t the case. It isn’t uncommon for people who’ve only had a drink or two to experience powerful symptoms of hangovers the following day, even though they never got drunk. Sometimes, you don’t even need to have consumed alcohol to experience what feels like a hangover. Rather, it is what you haven’t drank and are now dehydrated.
The symptoms of a hangover vary from person to person, but the most pressing ones tend to be headaches, tiredness, an upset stomach and nausea. While there’s a lot of stuff to account for when consuming alcohol, like the level of sugar in these drinks and sleep quality, this cluster of symptoms is associated with dehydration.
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Since alcohol is a diuretic, it makes you pee more often, thus, facilitating this process. “Mild dehydration can lead to brain confusion, fatigue, dizziness and irritability,” professor Christen Cupples Cooper tells Bustle.
Waking up with a hangover after a night of no drinking is uncommon but completely possible. There’s not much you can do to make yourself feel better after this has already happened, except to hydrate and wait it out, but there are a few things you can do in order to prevent this.
Whether you’re drinking alcohol or not, be sure to drink plenty of water throughout your day. This habit will get easier the more you do it and will provide you with other health benefits, such as a more functioning digestive system, higher levels of energy and motivation, and even clearer skin.
The governor’s comments join a fierce opposition wave against medical marijuana legalization in Nebraska.
A voter-approved initiative to legalize medical cannabis in Nebraska will appear on the November ballot, but marijuana shouldn’t even be labeled a medicine, according to Gov. Pete Ricketts. The comments represent a fierce opposition emerging in Nebraska against legalization.
“There is no such thing as medical marijuana,” Ricketts said at a press conference Monday. “This is not something that would be prescribed by a doctor. It’s not going to be distributed through a pharmacy. These are dispensaries that would be in your communities.”
Ricketts has spoken out against medical cannabis on multiple occasions and claimed that in legalized states, people “show up to work stoned” and cause a greater number of accidents.
“This is not a benign thing, this is a dangerous thing,” he added.
Research does not support these statements. Multiple studies have shown access to medical marijuana were associated with declines in fatal workplace injuries. Researchers suggest this happens because workers substitute cannabis with more dangerous drugs like alcohol and opioids.
Ricketts is not alone in fighting medical cannabis in Nebraska. Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner filed a legal challenge Friday against Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s ruling that advocates have collected enough official signatures to qualify the legalization measure in the upcoming election. Nebraska law requires 122,275 signatures to register a ballot initiative.
But Wagner argues the measure violates a Nebraska law that states such measures can only pose one question to voters. The initiative instead poses two separate queries to voters: 1) Should state residents be allowed to access and use medical marijuana and 2) should private companies grow and sell cannabis if so.
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Nebraska State Sen. Adam Morfeld, who had tried to legalize medical cannabis through the legislature for years, recalled a previous question he had with Wagner regarding the plant.
During a Judiciary Committee hearing that he testified in opposition to medical marijuana because he claimed it was “dangerous” I asked Sheriff Wagner how many people had died from drug and alcohol overdoses in his career? He said too many to count. How many from marijuana? Zero. https://t.co/AkAdtshNQV
“During a Judiciary Committee hearing that he testified in opposition to medical marijuana because he claimed it was “dangerous” I asked Sheriff Wagner how many people had died from drug and alcohol overdoses in his career?” Morfeld tweeted. “He said too many to count. How many from marijuana? Zero.”
No date has been set for the official hearing. However, a decision needs to be made by September 11, the final day measures can be certified for the ballot.
Public funding has prioritized marijuana’s harmful effects and not emphasized the potential therapeutic benefits of the plant.
According to his official presidential platform, Democratic candidate Joe Biden supports decriminalizing cannabis but not legalizing it. He will instead move to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule II drug, which will lift many restriction U.S. scientists face when studying cannabis. He told the New York Times editorial board that America needs the medical community to provide a definitive answer on what potential risk factors cannabis use can and can’t cause before he’d endorse legalization.
A new analysis shows funding for cannabis research primarily goes toward studying the plant’s negative impact and not its therapeutic value, according to the journal Science. About $1.49 billion in funding was directed to cannabis studies between 2000 to 2018 in the United States, with about half of that dedicated to exploring marijuana’s potential harms.
This represents the first quantitative analysis to try and understand where cannabis research is directed. It was conducted by Jim Hudson, who consults for government organization and medical research charities. Hudson categorized 3,269 grants from 50 funders, such as the U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), into what scientists focused their research on. He published the findings on his website to better explain how research funding works.
“The government’s budget is a political statement about what we value as a society,” Daniel Mallinson, a Penn State cannabis policy researcher, told Science. “The fact that most of the cannabis money is going to drug abuse and probably to cannabis use disorder versus medical purposes — that says something.”
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The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) provided over $1 billion in that funding allotment, placing a primary focus on possible risk and damage caused by recreational cannabis. That gap in funding between understanding the cannabis plant’s medicinal benefits and its negative characteristics, according to the data analysis, only widened under the Trump administration to further emphasize marijuana’s bad qualities.
The United States wasn’t the only country that prioritized marijuana’s harmful effects. During the same 19-year period, the United Kingdom allotted $40 million toward cannabis research and similarly emphasized abuse and risk involved with cannabis. Canada spent $32.2 million in that same timeframe and focused on the endocannabinoid system — a complex collection of receptors in humans that allow cannabis to bind with cannabinoids and naturally produced endocannabinoids.
Science did note, however, that the analysis regarded publicly available grant data and did not account for a growing private resource pool dedicated to cannabis research. States that have legalized marijuana have also crafted legislation that creates funding for marijuana studies. The Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, for example, instituted a medical marijuana research program in 2014.
Vape pens are incredibly popular, attracting users of all demographics. Here are the basics you should know about buying, choosing and using them.
Seemingly overnight, vape pens appeared in most cannabis users’ households, while also attracting non-users with their convenience and discreetness. Vape pens make for useful tools, providing you with different strains and flavors while eliminating the need to sit down and roll a joint. They are discreet in both odor and appearance, making it easy to smoke weed without setting off any alarms.
Since the vaping industry blew up so quickly it can be tough to know what these devices can do and which product works best for you. For the most part, vaporizers are intuitive and easy to use, with two main types of pens: herb and extract.
Herb vaporizers use cannabis flower and contain what is basically a small oven inside that heats up the cannabis and turns it into vape. These devices are generally reusable, bigger and more expensive. On the other hand, there’s extract vaporizers, which run on cannabis extracts. They’re very popular and can be reused, containing batteries, cartridges, and ports for charging.
Here are some of the basics you should know about vape pens:
When smoking weed, the paper goes through a combustion process that creates smoke and toxins associated with cancer and other illnesses. Vape pens heat the marijuana and create a vapor, which can still have an odor, but is much less thick and invasive than smoke. Vape pen vapor usually doesn’t cling to clothes and fabrics, and can be quickly dispersed in a room within minutes.
There’s some issues with buying them online
While you can still purchase vape pens from online sources, you won’t find them in places like Amazon, which screens against all sorts of drug/tobacco paraphernalia. While some products might appear here and there, they’ll most likely be taken down quickly.
Your best bet when purchasing these types of products is to order directly from a company’s website. If you prefer to do your research in-person, visit your nearest dispensary and ask your budtender about the different options that they offer.
A lot of people argue that vaping is healthier than smoking flower, primarily because you eliminate the combustion and smoke, which are the most harmful aspects associated with marijuana.
Still, there are some risks associated with vape pens, particularly with the chemicals that are in the devices — the side effects of which remain unknown and largely unresearched. It’s also important to purchase products from trusted sources, especially due to the strange vaping illness that appeared last year that affected hundreds of people.
Vape highs are different
While vaping marijuana is still vaping marijuana, the highs that vape pens produce are slightly different than the ones you’d get from a joint. If you’re not used to vaping, be sure to start off slow and to expect a stronger reaction. Vape pens usually pack a stronger hit than joints, especially if the cannabis comes from a concentrate.
While most are hedging their bets on Pennsylvania’s impending recreational legalization, industry insiders know that the real story is happening in New Jersey.
Editors Note: This story was written by Carly Fisher.
As the West Coast matures from the early Green Rush and Midwest markets like Michigan and Illinois hit their stride with recent legalization, all eyes are on the Northeast as the sleeping giant that will radically change the national cannabis landscape for 2021 and beyond. Among the 40 million-plus residing in the tri-state area between New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the East Coast offers a monumental competitive advantage with substantial opportunities for new players to make their mark as soon as the industry is given the green light to move forward—which is only a matter of time.
“There is no question that a lot of states that were sitting on the fence on adult-use legalization will now turn to it as they look for tax revenues,” says Joe Bayern, President of CuraLeaf (OTC:CURLF).
Bayern points to New Frontier Data that estimates that if marijuana were legalized today, roughly 782,000 new jobs would be created, estimated to grow to 1.1 million by 2025. Federal legalization, it is estimated, would generate $131.8 billion in federal tax revenue between 2017-2025.”
While most are hedging their bets on Pennsylvania’s impending recreational legalization, industry insiders know that the real story is happening in New Jersey. According to a recent Clarus report, Pennsylvania is expected to continue building on its rapid growth that has contributed to TerrAscend’s (OTC:TRSSF) foothold as one of the fastest organic revenue growth rates in the U.S. cannabis sector thanks to the strength of its Ilera unit in Pennsylvania (PA). However, New Jersey is the market with a promising outlook as the key revenue driver over the next two years.
“Due to population density, overall population size and a prospective turn toward adult use, I think New Jersey and Pennsylvania present some of the strongest prospects in the East for sustained levels of growth,” says Greg Rochlin, CEO of Ilera Healthcare. “Given TerrAscend’s high capacity, professional operations and team in the East Coast, we are well positioned to serve our patients and communities with research-based education and high quality, consistently produced products, in compliance with the state-based regulatory guidelines.”
The Garden State is poised to be the first to legalize, with the issue a hot topic on the ballot for the next election on November 3. Widely expected to pass, it would be the most populous East Coast state to legalize at around 9 million people. Add to that the nearby metropolitan markets in Philadelphia and New York City that are anxiously awaiting legalization, and New Jersey dispensaries could effectively have a captive market of over 20 million people. Marijuana Business Daily projects a legal recreational industry in New Jersey could potentially generate $1.2 billion-$1.5 billion in annual retail sales by 2023.
Photo by Howard Kingsnorth/Getty Images
At present, there are just 11 New Jersey dispensaries serving over 77,000 registered patients, with a maximum of 36 stores from existing operators. Additionally, there are only 12 vertically-integrated operators to date (including TerrAscend), with nine are up and running so far. TerrAscend is looking to open its first retail store in New Jersey with in-house product by Q1 for 2021, with two more stores expected by Q2 of 2021—a pushback from its original opening plans in Q4 of 2020. The Keystone State currently has the most developed medical cannabis infrastructure and is best positioned to transition to adult-use, while the Empire State—home to close to half of the population in the three states—will have the largest cannabis market in the northeast.
Still, there is no reward without risk, and the East Coast offers a unique combination of both. In addition to regulation and finding the right talent, climate and culture are among the most distinct challenges.
“Our region is also highly regulated so the barriers to enter and ability to sustain operations in these markets is high, requiring the appropriate skill set and resources to get a business up and running, and ultimately profitable. This is a challenge and an opportunity,” Rochlin says. “The climate in the East is not one that allows for large-scale outdoor growing, so more indoor infrastructure is required for a high-quality, high-production grow. In addition, the culture in the East is generally cautious when it comes to marijuana use, whereas in the West there tends to be a more laid-back and permissible attitude. While there is this dichotomy currently, outlooks are changing on the East Coast, and we anticipate a tipping point where marijuana becomes more culturally acceptable.”
In the wake of the devastation caused by COVID-19, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy recently said that legalizing cannabis is a ‘no-brainer’ for economic recovery. Bayern believes that cannabis can be a real solution to help local budget shortfalls through tax revenue and job creation, citing the fact cannabis was deemed an essential service and Curaleaf’s plans for a new grow facility in New Jersey’s Winslow Township that will create close to 125 jobs in January of 2021 as two primary examples of how far the industry has come.
“Cannabis is growing tremendously and is increasingly accepted as part of mainstream society – for patients and consumers who rely on it for a variety of health and wellness needs during this difficult, stressful time,” Bayern says. “Finally, I think there are strong parallels with the ending of alcohol prohibition after the Great Depression; I think you’ll see the same thing happen, a push to legalization and taxation once we get out of the more difficult phase of this pandemic and we move towards reopening the economy and filling revenue shortfalls.”
