{"id":5559,"date":"2016-02-18T03:38:31","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T03:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=4392"},"modified":"2016-02-18T03:38:31","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T03:38:31","slug":"cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about\/","title":{"rendered":"CBD Is The Chemical Medical Marijuana Is Buzzing About"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>It used to be all about the THC. In other words, cannabis&#8217; popularity has always been attributable to this psychoactive chemical, which gets people &#8220;high.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But marijuana&#8217;s bad boy image has been getting a well-earned makeover in recent years, thanks in part to its surging popularity as a legitimate form of herbal medicine.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it&#8217;s not cannabis&#8217; infamous THC content that&#8217;s creating a real buzz these days. Instead, it&#8217;s a lesser-known chemical called CBD that is attracting much of the attention. And it&#8217;s all because CBD provides some of marijuana&#8217;s most sought-after healing powers, according to medical studies.<\/p>\n<p>Also known as cannabidiol, CBD is the second-most abundant cannabinoid in the marijuana plant. And here&#8217;s what&#8217;s really interesting: CBD does not induce the mentally intoxicating effects that have made cannabis so controversial. That&#8217;s exclusively the role of THC.<\/p>\n<p>This is great news for the majority of medical patients, who have little or no interest in feeling psychologically impaired, i.e. &#8220;stoned.&#8221; All they want is a safe, addiction-free alternative to pharmaceutical drugs &#8212; especially painkilling opioids.<\/p>\n<p>All too often, opioids are over-prescribed by physicians. And they can quickly become very addictive.<\/p>\n<p>They can induce all sorts of other nasty side effects, too. Worst of all, they have been blamed for many suicides.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, a big part of medical marijuana&#8217;s burgeoning appeal is that it doesn&#8217;t come with the serious risks associated with opioids, and it&#8217;s very rarely addictive.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the full scope of its medicinal qualities is still not well understood, largely due to it being legally off-limits to most government-funded research facilities until recently. So the study of the 80 or so compounds that are found in the marijuana plant is still in its infancy.<\/p>\n<p>This is why some government-endorsed growers of medical marijuana are hard at work developing strains of marijuana that are especially high in CBD but low in THC.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the U.S. federal government is financing several dozen clinical trials into the efficacy of CBD as a treatment for a diversity of medical conditions. They include Parkinson&#8217;s Disease, epilepsy, opiate addiction, Crohn&#8217;s Disease, schizophrenia and cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Now a Canadian licensed producer claims to have made a major breakthrough. Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis (CSE: ACB) just developed what is believed to be the most CBD-rich strain of medical marijuana in the world. And it&#8217;s non-psychoactive.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to Neil Belot, a company spokesperson. Until recently he served as the executive director of Canada&#8217;s national trade association for licensed producers, known as the Canadian Medical Cannabis Industry Association.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Independent lab tests during our qualification runs have confirmed this strain at nearly 26 per cent CBD and one per cent THC, which is a testament to our pioneering, science-driven plant cultivation technologies,&#8221; Belot says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we&#8217;re confident that this will soon become Canada&#8217;s most sought-after CBD-rich cannabis strain, and will be supported by physicians and patients alike,&#8221; he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Until last week, a strain developed in the U.S. called Charlotte&#8217;s Web was considered to contain the highest percentage of CBD ever developed; it has 20 per cent CBD and less than 0.5 per cent THC.<\/p>\n<p>The advent of non-psychoactive, CBD-rich\/low-THC marijuana is a big step towards many peoples&#8217; acceptance of cannabis as a legitimate form of medicine. This is according to Dr. Jonathan Page, an adjunct professor of botany at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.<\/p>\n<p>A world-renowned expert on the chemistry of marijuana, he was the first scientist to sequence the cannabis genome. He now runs Vancouver-based Anandia Labs, a biotechnology start-up that&#8217;s innovating new varieties of medical marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>Page says CBD&#8217;s anti-inflammatory properties may be particularly appealing to chronic pain sufferers who want to remain clear-headed while medicated. And CBD-rich oil is gaining greater acceptance among parents and doctors as an appropriate treatment for paediatric seizure disorders, including epilepsy, he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Among its many other uses, CBD is considered therapeutic for treating depression, anxiety, insomnia and nausea.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on Aurora&#8217;s unprecedented cultivation of the world&#8217;s highest strain of non-psychoactive, CBD-rich cannabis, Page says, &#8220;This is a really remarkable achievement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4393\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4393\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about.jpg\" alt=\"cbd-1132x670\" width=\"737\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cbd-1132x670-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about.jpg 737w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 737px) 100vw, 737px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nNews Moderator: Robert Celt <a href=\"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">420 MAGAZINE \u00ae<\/a><br \/>\nFull Article: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.ca\/marc-davis-\/cbd-medical-marijuana_b_9212006.html\" target=\"_blank\">CBD Is The Chemical Medical Marijuana Is Buzzing About<\/a><br \/>\nAuthor: Marc Davis<br \/>\nContact: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.ca\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\">HuffingtonPost<\/a><br \/>\nPhoto Credit: None found<br \/>\nWebsite: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">HuffingtonPost<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It used to be all about the THC. In other words, cannabis&#8217; popularity has always been attributable to this psychoactive&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/2016\/02\/cbd-is-the-chemical-medical-marijuana-is-buzzing-about\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2329,9,1,3],"tags":[4896],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}