One of the biggest trends in the cannabis sector are CBD products. CBD is short for cannabidiol, the cannabinoid found in marijuana and in hemp that is generally believed to be the true medicinal compound found in marijuana. One of its major advantages is not only that it seems to reduce inflammation, but it also has no psychoactive effect which appeals to patients not interested in getting high.
The Lautenberg Center for General and Tumor Immunology in Israel recently published a report concerning pure CBD products and how they are very limited in their ability to reduce inflammation and pain relative to the full spectrum of cannabinoids found in marijuana flower. What is commonly referred to as the entourage effect was able to reduce pain and inflammation substantially more in the lab mice they tested than the pure CBD extracts they used.
In this study lab mice were inflicted with swelling in their paws and multiple agents were applied to see which reduced the swelling the most effectively. Tested agents included a control, a CBD concentrate, a full cannabis flower concentrate, aspirin (an over-the-counter painkiller) and tramadol (a highly addictive prescription based painkiller). Results showed that the CBD isolated concentrate failed at being effective once a certain dosage was reached as opposed to the full spectrum cannabis flower concentrate which continued to reduce swelling the more the dosage was increased. Both aspirin and tramadol performed poorly at reducing the inflammation relative to the cannabis
The purified CBD was acquired from THC Pharm. GmbH (Frankfurt, Germany) to act as the pharmaceutical grade isolated extract. For the whole plant extract, flowers from the clone 202 (proprietary strain: Avidekel) were supplied by the government-approved growers Tikun Olam Company. Bred to be rich in CBD, the raw flowers of this whole plant extract were ground up and cannabinoids were extracted using the solvent ethanol.
These results could be a problem for the massive amounts of pure CBD products being pushed into the market. Needless to say, patients that are are interested in pain management and reducing inflammation will want what is most effective. More research will need to be done to see how scientists can eliminate or at the very least reduce the psychoactive effects of THC in the full marijuana flower. Marijuana will also need to be rescheduled before those sorts of products can be offered nationwide. Until then CBD products generated from hemp can already be sold nation wide.
