Wayne Schwind, Host: Cannabis 101: From Newbie to Novice - that's a working title, but (I love it haha) that's what we're hoping to accomplish today. So you got a grandma, friend who’s heard of cannabis, never heard of it, maybe heard of the word terpene, this will be a great foundational episode hopefully that they can listen to and feel like they got a pretty good handle to walk into a store, make a purchase, know what they're looking for. (Definitely) So Emma Chasen, you want to do a quick introduction if people haven't heard a past episode before, (Sure!) and then get started right into it?
Emma Chasen, Guest: Yeah, my name is Emma Chasen, I am a cannabis educator and industry consultant, and really I see my role as being able to kind of bridge this gap that we have in cannabis education right now. We have these really scientific, heavy, amazing research papers that are coming out but that are filled with a lot of that kind of science jargon, and then we have on the other side of the spectrum blogs and websites that are publishing cannabis science information, but if you try to track it down or try to find footnotes for it, they either don't exist, lead to dead ends, or maybe they're sponsored by a company, so I'm always kind of skeptical of that information, so what I try to do is take my science background, because I do have a formal degree in biology and medicinal plant research, so I am able to understand that kind of science heavy jargon and I see myself as having this responsibility to then translate it so that the general public, industry professionals, anybody can understand it.
Wayne: So I think for the first question, let's just start with, you know, maybe something real simple like, what is cannabis the plant and then maybe we could talk about hemp as well because I think for a new consumer those are the two categories they're gonna see when looking at the market, one you can buy online, one only in certain states, that seems kind of confusing. (Definitely) You just want to break those two categories down initially and then we'll start dividing under those?
Emma: Absolutely. So cannabis, to define it in botanical terms, it is a dioecious, vascular, flowering plant of the plant family Cannabaceae, and so to kind of break that down a little bit, ”dioecious” means that it typically has a male plant and a female plant. So we know that this is true for cannabis, our female plants are the ones that produce those really like, prized flowers that we all love to consume, it's what we smoke, the female flower. There are also male plants that are generally only used for breeding, if you want to kind of cross and make new genetics, you'd take some pollen from a male plant and put it onto the pistil of a female plant and create new genetics that way, but typically you want to keep your male and female plants separate, otherwise you could get seeded bud, which if you are looking to market that to a dispensary, that's definitely not what you want. It is also a vascular plant, meaning that it has vascular tissue. So vascular tissue allows plants to grow big and tall, away from its root system. Vascular tissue like xylem and phloem are like highways that allow the transport of nutrients throughout the plant. So cannabis can grow very tall away from its root system because it has that vascular tissue, and then like I mentioned it is flowering, so it produces flowers and the female flowers are the little cannabis buds, “nugs”, that you'll see on the market.
Wayne: Yeah, is that rare for plants to have, like, the separated male and female, separated like that or are most plants all combined into one?
Emma: I wouldn't say that it's necessarily rare, but there are a lot of plants and a lot of flowers in particular where you will see stamen, which is the male sex organ, right next to a pistil, and so that would be a kind of self-fertilizing flower, “monoecious” in that case.
Wayne: Yeah, so when a consumer, you know, there's cannabis and then inside of cannabis there's a lot of different types, and there's all these chemical compounds - for a consumer that's new, what are the main categories of compounds that make up the cannabis plant that would interest us, or why humans like to consume them, like what are those beneficial parts or inside of cannabis?
Emma: Yeah, so when we talk about cannabis now, we are typically talking about quote unquote “drug cultivar cannabis”, so the plant that has THC dominance, or at least a measurable concentration of THC in there, THC being the main cannabinoid found most abundantly in the cannabis plant, the cannabinoid that gets you high, but that also has many medicinal properties behind it, and that is part of a larger group of secondary compounds called the cannabinoids. So THC, CBD, many other minor cannabinoids, and then there are also terpenes in there as well, terpenes being the aromatic compounds found in all plants. They give plants their smell, but they also do correlate to some physiological effects and really when we talk about terpenes in cannabis, we think that they're the ones responsible for determining the differing effects between strains or genetics, if it's going to be energizing or relaxing. And then there are also the flavonoids, which have mostly antioxidant and anti-proliferative properties, so they're good at fighting cancer and we also think that they have something to do with how we taste cannabis, but there is - there's not that much research on flavonoids just yet, and right now our cannabis analytical testing laboratories don't test for flavonoids, so there's just not the data there yet. And those are just three of the kind of classes of secondary compounds that we know about. We predict that there are many, many more that we will hope to find out in the future, yeah.
Wayne: Yeah, and we'll get it each of those, you know, cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, we’ll dive into each of those categories because there's many different complexities under each of those, so it's interesting to learn that there also might be more subcategories besides those three that might have effects or something to do with how we're experiencing cannabis. And this is, um I don't know if this is a myth question or something I'd like clarified - when I talk about hemp sometimes, which you know these are the products that are being sold online, not necessarily in a state-licensed store, is the hemp plant the male plant of cannabis, and then the cannabis we’re growing for the flower with the THC is that the female plant, or is that wrong to say hemp is the male?
Emma: Hemp is not the male - so hemp can be female and actually, most of the hemp that is grown I believe is female, the female flowers are just nothing like what we think of as the flowers that we see on the shelf from cannabis in a dispensary. They're really not, they don't have like a tight morphology, they're not something that you would really want to smoke, they're quite loose. Hemp is, or can be thought of, as a subspecies of cannabis - so it's still under the cannabis umbrella, it just took a different breeding pathway as compared to the drug cultivar cannabis. (Ok) So drug cultivar cannabis, it was bred for THC and really it was bred illegally, and so there was quite a lot of genetic diversity and a lot of breeders did try to select for the highest THC content possible because that's what the black-market wanted, and so we now have this kind of genetic population of cannabis that has incredibly high THC concentrations and only just in the last few years has the CBD trend and the demand for CBD kind of risen. And CBD is abundantly found in hemp, which is cool, but hemp was not bred for its secondary compounds, hemp never had an illegal status or never had the kind of illegal status like the drug cultivar cannabis did, and so it was bred for its primary compounds, like its proteins and its fibers, it was used for its ability to help clean up the soil and for that kind of stuff. It wasn't really bred for high levels of CBD or terpenes or THC, but it does naturally have a dominant concentration of CBD and so that's why you will see hemp-derived CBD and cannabis-derived CBD products.
Wayne: Right yeah, and that's where I've, you know, I think consumers - there's kind of some confusion and there’s not a lot of clarity there when it seemed to me like hemp and cannabis were almost the two separated plants, but really hemp is cannabis, it's just a different strain or genetic line that's been bred (Exactly) right okay, makes a lot of sense. So starting with that main group, cannabinoids, do you want to kind of break down THC and CBD and what those, maybe what those are exactly and how they interact with the body so if a consumer was looking at, you know, walking into a store - that's really, would you say, the first thing if you're gonna select a product is THC, you know, concentration versus CBD, start there and then kind of work to those other categories, is that a good approach?
Emma: Yeah definitely, the cannabinoids are the main class of secondary compounds found in cannabis, and so they are the ones most abundantly found, and when shopping you should look to the THC and CBD concentration and definitely make sure to ask your budtender or whoever is kind of on staff about what experience you're looking for - or I guess not ask your budtender about what experience you're looking for, but tell them what experience you're looking for, and then they should help to kind of guide you to what cannabinoid concentration you will want. THC is, like I mentioned, the cannabinoid that is most abundantly found in this drug cultivar cannabis, just because of the way that it was bred for black-market and it has many medicinal properties - it can help with pain inflammation it does have anti-proliferative efficacy, so it can help fight cancer. However, there are some negative side effects associated with THC: so the anxiety, the paranoia, the elevated heart rate, THC does have the ability to kind of open up your circulatory system, it's called “vasodilation”, so really open up the veins, get the blood moving. That will lower your blood pressure, so you could also potentially faint if you have problems with blood pressure, and it also has been linked to memory impairment. And so there are some things to watch out for with THC, definitely if you've ever had an experience where maybe you've eaten pot brownie in college and just got really way too high and stuck inside your head, that was due to a THC overdose and so if you’re somebody who's prone to anxiety maybe that's something that you would want to steer clear from, or just look for a low concentration of THC. CBD on the other hand is the second most prominent cannabinoid found in cannabis and it has many, many medicinal properties. The one that really is conclusive, which actually the FDA just approved the CBD drug for Dravet's syndrome, which is a rare seizure disorder it has, CBD has been linked to anticonvulsant, anti-seizure properties but it also has been linked to anti-inflammatory, pain relieving, anti-anxiety, anti-depressant – many, many medicinal properties. And it also has the ability to kind of cut, or reduce those negative side effects from THC, so it helps to kind of bring down that overdose experience, it helps to improve memory and actually lessen the memory impairment thing that happens with THC. It also helps to reduce anxiety, reduce paranoia, so it can be used as kind of an EpiPen, I call it, of cannabis - if you're having a freak out, CBD can help kind of bring you down from that. And then, those are the two main cannabinoids to look for, most dispensaries should report both of those cannabinoid concentrations, and you should see those displayed right there on the product labels, but there are also the minor cannabinoids as well like CBC, CBG, CBN that can definitely influence the experience if they are in measurable or substantial concentrations.
Wayne: Okay, are products starting to show those results, or is there, you know, popularity in more of the minor cannabinoids, is that growing and building right now?
Emma: Definitely yeah, I have noticed some companies kind of, making the choice to display CBC, CBG, or CBN concentrations, if again they are in a substantial enough concentration. Also people are starting to talk about CBN because it does have really sedative properties, so for people who do want to use or find cannabis for sleep, they can look to something that maybe is a little higher in CBN concentration. For somebody who wants to potentially help kind of calm maybe a really reflux-y or inflamed GI tract, they could look for something that has a higher concentration of CBG. For somebody who's looking to treat a bacterial infection, maybe CBC. (Interesting) So there's, there are for especially those kind of specific ailment questions, there are the minor cannabinoids that you can look for.
Wayne: And if someone was really interested in the minor cannabinoids, or even real in-depth on just THC and CBD for their own ailments, is there a good source or platform where they could go to learn more about the individual minor cannabinoids for their own specific use if you know a specific ailment or something, is that difficult to figure out on the internet right now?
Emma: It is kind of difficult to figure out on the internet, I actually off the top of my head don't have a great website to recommend that really talks about each of those cannabinoids. You can definitely get in touch with me, I'm happy to talk more about those minor cannabinoids, even the major cannabinoids. There's also a website called Hempsley Health, which is an education initiative out of Missouri, so it's actually in a non-cannabis state, and I know that she talks a lot about wellness and holistic lifestyle, the Endocannabinoid Receptor System, I'm not sure if she has a page that really talks in-depth about the cannabinoids, but it could be a good place to start.
Wayne: Okay yeah, I mean we'll throw something the show notes too if we find a good resource for people. CBD, or THC and CBD, so just to recap there, it sounds like when you start look for the right THC dosage that's really critical not to go over, and we'll get into dosing a little bit later, but on the CBD side if you go, you know, two or three times as much as you should consume, is it quite safe to go high on CBD and you're not risking much?
Emma: Exactly, yeah, with THC it's really important to start with a very, very small dose if you do not know your dose or if you're unfamiliar with experimenting with cannabis, especially THC, I mean I recommend for people to start as low as two and a half milligrams of THC as a starting dose if they are going to be ingesting. If it's inhaling, it's a little bit harder to measure that dose, and so we say kind of like a two-second pull of a joint or a vape pen, and don't hold it into your lungs as long as you can - kind of pull it in, breathe it out, wait 10 minutes, see how it makes you feel. With CBD you can go up to a starting dose of 20 milligrams of CBD, and even that is considered kind of low, there's not much of a chance that you'll have a negative experience with CBD - there are definitely those people that have those atypical reactions where it does kind of incite rage, actually I've heard more than anything from those people who have atypical responses is that CBD can like, make them really angry. Which is interesting, don't know why, but they are even at that 20 milligram mark of CBD, even if it makes you really angry it shouldn't make you like, paranoid or super anxious or stuck inside your head like THC could.
Wayne: Okay, and you know for therapeutic use I think CBD is very attractive right now because you can buy it online if you're in a state that's illegal. If someone's trying CBD and it's not really working for them or they don't notice the effects is it true that a slight bump of THC or a very micro dose of THC to go with your CBD consumption makes it more effective or it depending on the person?
Emma: Yes - so one, I would say if you are living in a non-legal state and you are trying a CBD product, make sure that you know the source, make sure you know where it's coming from. A lot of people looking to capitalize on this growing trend of CBD are selling like, hemp seed oil as a CBD tincture - that's not the same thing. And so make sure that you are sourcing from companies who do do their own testing, who only source organic material, who are making full-spectrum products - so hemp products that have that full range of secondary compounds in there. And yeah just check in with the companies that you are looking to source from, and then if you are sourcing from a really great company with all those points like I said, and you're still not finding that you're really achieving the symptom relief that you want to, then incorporating a little bit of THC could definitely help improve the efficacy. It's not necessary because CBD does hit about 15 receptor families in the body, including the Endocannabinoid Receptor System, and so it doesn't need THC to engage with all of those receptor systems. However, I've specifically seen it when patients or customers are trying to treat pain, are trying to achieve symptom relief with pain, looking at a close to 1:1 ratio of THC to CBD seems to be the most effective, and that is because THC allows CBD to engage with the Endocannabinoid Receptor System in a much more efficient way.
Wayne: Interesting. So for a first-timer, maybe 2.5 milligrams THC with 2.5 milligrams CBD might be effective for pain specifically, and other things?
Emma: Definitely, yeah I have seen hemp-derived CBD without any THC or with a very like little, nominal concentration of THC be really helpful for people who are looking to achieve symptom relief from like, anxiety or depression, and that's because CBD does interact with our serotonin receptors and with a neurotransmitter called GABA that helps to regulate stress and mood. And so that seems to be effective without THC, but again if you're looking to treat or manage pain or a more severe ailment and you're not finding the relief that you want with just CBD, then just adding a little bit of THC in there may help, it's worth a try.
Wayne: Okay, I want to get into what you said about full spectrum in those other categories that make up cannabis that we talked about. Before we do that though, I think to set that up it might be helpful to talk about the body’s Endocannabinoid System, what that means and I would think of a, you know, if you're in a state that's illegal or you hear people talking good about like, cannabis is helping me with my pain and you have that old stigma, it's like everyone's just trying to get high, they're all lying, there's no way this could be the case, but I was really fascinated to learn how the Endocannabinoid System, we're literally producing similar like molecules that are in cannabis. So could we kind of break that down for a new consumer that maybe has never heard of that and what that means inside of our body, and what cannabis, how it's actually interacting with us?
Emma: Definitely, yeah. So the Endocannabinoid Receptor System is a system in our body that is comprised of different receptors, different molecules, different signaling molecules, and it really acts as the kind of like, lubricant for the body's organ systems. And the way that I explain it is that our body is constantly running, all of our organ systems are constantly running to make sure that we are alive. And anytime you have a machine that is constantly running, it's going to kind of have some hiccups right, it's going to have some failures, and that's where disease can occur and other health problems can occur. And so the Endocannabinoid Receptor System exists to keep those organ systems running smoothly, even though they have to run all the time. And we do produce our own endogenous cannabinoids, and so when we talk about cannabinoids like THC and CBD from cannabis - those are phyto-cannabinoids, they're derived from the plant. But our body does make its own endocannabinoids that can engage with our Endocannabinoid Receptor System to, again, help keep our bodies running smoothly. Unfortunately, our Endocannabinoid Receptor Systems are not running at optimal functioning level, or at least that is the theory, that a lot of people are deficient in endocannabinoids just because of maybe the nature of our reality right now, life is really stressful, the world is really stressful and so when we are in a constant state of stress, it's hard for our body to produce these endocannabinoids and to have them kind of existing in our system long enough to produce a positive effect. And so that's where supplementing with phyto-cannabinoids helps our Endocannabinoid System engage and helps that system then help all of our other systems run smoothly.
Wayne: Interesting, so is it similar to compare and say like when someone's Vitamin D deficient they can have problems in their health and, you know, a supplement with Vitamin D can help them get back to balance -is it kind of a similar thing with the endocannabinoid system and cannabis?
Emma: Yeah, that's a good way to kind of like wrap your head around it in that this theory of these of us all being deficient in our endocannabinoids it makes sense that we would then take phyto-cannabinoids like that supplement like Vitamin D to help our body achieve more optimal levels of health.
Wayne: Yeah it's fascinating like after, like you know hard exercise or if I'm feeling sore or a headache, if I ever feel like off, not just kind of like in a good groove, just a little bit of cannabis - or high stress like after work you just, it's this feeling of like just balance and everything kind of like lightens the load, and then you kind of keep moving forward, but it's such a strange experience. But to know your body is making very similar cannabinoids internally and that now cannabis is just mimicking that to what we're already producing. I think a lot of people start thinking cannabis is like this extra added drug you know that you're putting in your body, it's foreign, it doesn't exist there, so to hear that that's the case, you have the system that's almost built for those, that's really fascinating.
Emma: Yeah it definitely helps to fight that stigma that cannabis is this foreign drug that we shouldn't be using, it's changing us for the worse, whatever it may be or its… no, our Endocannabinoid Receptor System has existed for a very long time and cannabis has also existed for a very long time, and it makes sense that we should use this very medicinal plant to help us just have a better quality of life.
Wayne: Yeah definitely, so going back to full spectrum, what does that, so you talked about looking for something that's, you know, CBD you're buying it online, something that's “full spectrum” - what does that mean for a product, for a consumer looking to use a product, what's that full spectrum tagline, and what does it mean exactly?
Emma: Hmm, yeah so full spectrum means that in the product, there is the full range of secondary compounds or that in through the extraction process of making the oil or whatever the extract may be, that the maker, the processor, has done their kind of job to preserve as many of those compounds as possible in the end product. This relates to the theory of the Entourage Effect - so this is a theory that states that all of the compounds in the cannabis matrix are working together to produce the most medically efficacious response, that actually if you put cannabinoids and terpenes together, it will create a multiplicative effect, so it’s not even like cannabinoids plus terpenes equals this - cannabinoids plus terpenes equals a multiplied synergistic effect, where you can find a much greater level of symptom relief as compared to an isolate. And so for example, if you were just to take an isolate of THC or an isolate of CBD, it may not be as effective as a product that does have CBD, THC, minor cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids and all of the other compounds that we don't even know about yet.
Wayne: Okay. Now the full spectrum then, I guess, would love to get into these next two categories – is, to break that down simply as, does full spectrum mean cannabinoids plus your terpenes and flavonoids to go with it (Yes, yeah) versus isolated like you said just THC which would be that cannabinoid all on its own?
Emma: Exactly, and full-spectrum, of course it's important in relation to this Entourage Effect theory, and also it's important to understand kind of the way that you have to process the material in order to achieve full spectrum. Not everything is going to be full spectrum based on the way that you process it, because these different compounds have different boiling points, and so terpenes for example are very, very volatile - that's why we can smell them, because they are evaporating at room temperature. And so through an extraction process where maybe there's high heat, high pressure, a lot of these terpenes can be destroyed and so then you wouldn't be getting full spectrum. But if you did a really like, low temp slow, long process then you may come out with a full spectrum product, because you have done your job to preserve those terpenes with low temperature and just a longer extraction time.
Wayne: Okay, so what are terpenes then? Let’s start with that.
Emma: So, terpenes are tiny, little fat-soluble molecules, they are our aromatic compounds found in almost all plants and even some insects. So when you smell a flower, when you smell a plant and it has a smell, you are inhaling terpenes. They are found abundantly in cannabis, and they have many, many medicinal properties that are correlated to these terpenes, they are not just for smell. Really the plant produces them as their kind of defense system, so they exist on these structures called, or in these structures called trichomes that sit on the surface of the cannabis plant, and so they're like little like soldiers trying to protect the castle right? And because of that they have antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic – many, many different medicinal properties that, again, were created to help protect the plant. But as humans have found that they also have quite a bit of benefits for us. And I mean we consume terpenes every day: when you eat a citrus fruit, when you drink a beer, if you are into essential oils - those are concentrated forms of terpenes. And so there they're constantly around us and just because they are found so abundantly in cannabis, it's kind of led to us like really recognizing them and how medicinal they can be.
Wayne: Interesting - does cannabis have a higher than normal terpene content compared to other plants?
Emma: Cannabis has definitely a more diverse matrix of secondary compounds - so almost all plants have secondary compounds because they do exist to protect the plant, and then medicinal plants have higher concentrations of these secondary compounds. With cannabis, it's so special because there are so many different types of secondary compounds within one plant matrix - in cannabis alone there are over 200 identified terpenes, (wow) so it's a lot of terpenes, which is exciting.
Wayne: Yeah, yeah it's fascinating to have that much opportunity or potential, but also difficult at the same time as we try to figure out like, well what, you know we talked about THC and CBD just those two cannabinoids, and then there's a list of minor cannabinoids, and now let's throw terpenes into that as well, and figure out what profile or would be the best for pain or sleep or anxiety, because it seems like it's helping so many different ailments and we just seem to be figuring out what those terpenes, how that Entourage Effect is happening and helping all these different things.
Emma: So yeah it's like a giant puzzle that's also very specific to each individual, because each individual has their own unique Endocannabinoid Receptor System - so your Endocannabinoid Receptor System is very different from mine, and then on top of that it is constantly changing, our physiology, our own constitution is constantly changing. And so it is a really kind of fun thing with cannabis to work with people to really help them find the exact ratio of compounds that works for them, but also really helping them to find this like comfort with experimentation, with “this may change in a couple of weeks, you may find that you need something different”, and that's where something like a consumption journal or just keeping track of your own experience with different products really helps people start to find a pattern of what works for them and what doesn’t.
Wayne: Yeah and I, so there's a kind of a family of terpenes that I've seen more reoccurring or just seem to be more popular, that people are talking about more and so I have a question around, so Myrcene is one of those terpenes as an example, and my understanding is that one normally correlates to you know a little more sedative, calming, relaxing - like a nighttime, you know product if it had Myrcene in it. But is it true that, that's true for most people but for someone Myrcene might actually make them you know kind of, be more like uplifted, or not sedated by that terpene, is that the case then?
Emma: Sure, yeah, there is always a chance for an atypical response; generally Myrcene does decrease motility, which means that it does act as this kind of relaxer, it's a muscle relaxant. It generally helps with pain, but that that may be totally different in somebody else. Even in regards to cannabinoids, to THC - my partner, she like, if she consumes any THC immediately falls asleep, like just out like a light. For me, I can't fall asleep, it stimulates me, and so there is that variability. All medicinal plants have that variability, that's part of the reason why the FDA doesn't want to approve them, or can't approve them, because there's no standard dose, there's no standard experience really, and so again it's really giving yourself the permission to experiment with cannabis - of course, responsibly, employing tips and tricks like micro-dosing and consuming in the evening maybe, just in case you have an uncomfortable experience, to really begin to find what works for you. And I'd say with terpenes especially, there are certain terpenes that have quite like polarizing effects and experiences for different people. One in particular is Terpinolene, which can deliver a really motivating, focusing, inspiring experience for some; for others, it really gets them trapped inside their own head, is way too over-stimulating, I call it like the ping-pong thoughts inside the brain that just can't come out. And that, I've seen is kind of like a 50/50 split in people, yeah.
Wayne: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, yeah so that's really good for consumers and beginners too, if they tried cannabis once and, maybe smoking flower, and had a really negative experience like that, which was kind of anxiety and overwhelming causing, it could have been from a certain terpene or profile that wasn't ideal for you, and trying something else with a different terpene or profile could be very effective for you.
Emma: Definitely, yes. Feeling okay in that experimentation and having maybe some CBD on hand just in case an anxious response occurs, micro-dosing so that you never get to that place of like, really feeling so overwhelmed, and talking to your budtender or your friend who knows about cannabis, and looking for those terpenes that help calm the body instead of give that really stimulating response.
Wayne: Yeah, so what about, so flavonoids? (Hmmm) Interested in this category because it seems so on like I know it's the third like, secondary category that's important, but we just don't, I don't ever hear it talked about, I don't know what different flavonoids there are, you know we’re so focused on terpenes that I'm curious what lies behind like are there any mysteries or secrets that we could discover in this, you know, near future that might be having a lot to do with the different effects we experience from cannabis?
Emma: Yeah, definitely. I am excited for the day when cannabis analytical laboratories can and start tests start testing for flavonoids currently I believe there are 23 identified flavonoids in cannabis, and only two of them are specific to cannabis – meaning they're not found in any other plant and that they are aptly named Cannaflavin-A and Cannaflavin-B, so easy to remember. But then there are also other flavonoids found in the cannabis plant that are very, very popular among the plant kingdom - most of your foods or vegetables have flavonoids. So like broccoli, when you hear people talk about, “Oh, broccoli helps to fight cancer” they're talking about flavonoids found in broccoli. When you hear, “Oh, the antioxidants in blueberries are amazing” they're talking about flavonoids. Flavonoids, their general properties are antioxidant and cancer-fighting, those are the medicinal properties linked to flavonoids. Because flavonoids are found in our food, most of the research that has been done looks at how flavonoids kind of go through our digestive system and so and it's the same thing with terpenes we're really only beginning to understand what happens when you combust these compounds - when you heat them at really high temperatures. There was just a study done out of PSU (Portland State University) or I guess not just now, but a few months ago, where they looked at BHO (Butane Hash Oil) and consuming BHO, and they found that consuming BHO in high terpenes was actually creating this negative responses in people and that's because when you heated these terpenes at a really high, high temp, they were turning into toxic compounds. (Really?) Yeah, and so that's not to say that we can extrapolate that to flower because it was specifically looking at BHO and dabbing, but that's just one example of the research that we kind of still have yet to discover, we still have yet to do and uncover the ways in which these compounds change in their molecular structure when we do consume them by combustion or heating.
Wayne: Yeah, big one I was interested in was in chocolate. So dark chocolate, there you know, same kind of thing like, “Oh dark chocolate can be mood enhancing or lifts your spirits” and I found a company actually that has identified what that is, is a flavonoid called Flavonol is in chocolate, and they make like, a hyper-concentrated chocolate bar that's like nine times the amount found in normal dark chocolate of this Flavonol (Wow! *laughter*) and so I was like, well I wonder if cannabis produces Flavonol, or is that only a chocolate… flavonoid –I gotta keep all these words in order, there's so many (*Laughter*) but yeah, that just whole category, is there any research or anything known around, what did you call it, Cannaflavinol-A and B? Do we know much about those at all?
Emma: Yes, Cannaflavin-A and Cannaflavin-B – not much. Again, thought to have the antioxidant and anti-cancer properties. The two flavonoids that we have the most research on, I believe, is Apigenin, which is found in almost everything, which also has an anxiolytic response, so it helps with anxiety, helps to improve mood. It's also found in cannabis, and Quercetin, which you can actually easily find, kind of like, vitamin supplements of that in stores and again acts, I believe that one’s mostly antioxidant. And off the top of my head I can't remember if Flavonol, the euphoric agent, is found in cannabis, but like I said there are 23 identified thus far.
Wayne: Okay. Yeah, I wonder if one day like now growers are putting, you know, 6% terpenes on the flower and these four terpenes are the most dominant in this strain, like we get to see that now before we make a buying decision. (Mm-hmm) I wonder if one day it'll say like, 3% you know flavonoids and maybe these ones are the key ones, it'll be interesting if it keeps going there and we'll get even deeper with how they're buying and deciding on products.
Emma: Yeah, that would be awesome and again that kind of like helps us move forward in this conversation of full spectrum of the entourage effect of, okay we know that there are these individual flavonoids found in the matrix, but what happens when they interact with terpenes and cannabinoids? With terpene research and cannabinoid research we've already seen that, in that sometimes the isolated properties or the properties of the isolated compounds are completely different than the properties of these compounds when they interact with cannabinoids. A good example of that is Terpinolene, so that terpene that I mentioned that has that really kind of like polarizing effect on people; scientists first initially determined that it was a sedative because when they gave it to rats it decreased their motility, and so that led them to the conclusion, okay it's a sedative but anecdotally, it acts as a stimulant in people like overwhelmingly so. And so it's thought that when Terpinolene combines with THC, there's actually a synergistic reaction that happens that helps to kind of turn that decreased motility into increased motility. So it completely flips around that property of Terpinolene, which is cool and so when looking at flavonoids, I'm excited for the research to move forward and okay, yes, we know that there are these identified flavonoids in this matrix and these are the ways that they could work together with terpenes and cannabinoids to produce this experience.
Wayne: Yeah, yeah so you’ve talked to me about this before, I think is really important for listeners as well is a lot of the buying decisions right now seem to be more, and maybe it's moving away from this, but going in to look for flower with, you know, 30% THC or 32%, like what's the highest THC because that's the best value for my dollar, I want to get my money to stretch it, you know, be valuable for what I'm buying but what I've noticed and, you know, blind judging competitions for flower the strains that are winning are actually in the low 20s or even the high teens of THC you know 19%, 21% but a good terpene profile, you know, 5/6% terpenes and those will actually be more effective in the experience than that really high THC percentage and get you more value for your dollar actually so it's kind of confusing where you think you just most THC per dollar but those terpenes and full spectrum is really, really important for products and consumers.
Emma: Definitely, yeah and I think that like consumer thought of, “Oh, like best bang for my buck, have to go for the highest THC percentage” I think we're kind of still shedding the prohibition culture I mean still in a large portion of America it's still rather illegal to consume and buy cannabis and so there's still the shedding process of, for the last century we haven't had this kind of lab data, and so all of a sudden people are like, “Oh my god I can actually see the THC percentage, I'm obviously gonna go for the highest because that's what the black-market told me that I wanted, right?”. But there is this moment of kind of releasing that, of again this call for experimentation, of “Well, why don't you try something with a little bit lower THC, higher terpenes, you may find that that is an overall stonier, better experience than just that super high THC, lower terpene experience.” And like you said we see in blind judging competitions, people do actually prefer that low to moderate level of THC with the high terpene concentration and to try to explain that from a kind of biochemical standpoint, we can talk about the way that terpenes and cannabinoids actually absorb through our physiology in that all of the compounds need to enter the brain in order to bind to our receptors to cause the kind of psychoactive effect, if that is what we're looking for. And what exists around the brain is called the blood-brain barrier, and it exists to keep large, potentially toxic compounds out of the brain because the brain is arguably one of our most important organs and so it doesn't want anything nasty getting in there, but we also need things like gases and food to get into our brain so that it can continue to thrive. And so that's why this kind of barrier exists with these little kind of punctured holes through it, so it does allow smaller lipophilic, or fat soluble, compounds through and some gases as well. And so terpenes are really teeny, teeny tiny compounds and they can go through that blood-brain barrier easily - that's why when you smell a flower you like immediately have a certain sensation whereas when you are inhaling cannabinoids or consuming cannabinoids it can take a little while to kind of make you feel high right, when you're specifically smoking or vaporizing and that's because cannabinoids in comparison to terpenes are larger; they're a little clunky and so it takes them longer to get into the brain. Any time you cross this phospholipid bilayer it's called, this membrane, it will take a longer time if you are a larger molecule; you come up against a greater channel of resistance. And so because terpenes are teeny tiny, they can get through right away. Cannabinoids can pass through; it just takes them a little longer. When you have terpenes and cannabinoids together, the terpenes kind of act as the head goose - so I use this example of geese flying in a V-formation; that head goose is doing most of the work, they're setting that channel of resistance, and then the rest of the geese like fly behind them and ride that wave right? And so when we're talking about passing through the blood-brain barrier, terpenes can act as that head goose - they can set that channel of resistance to a relatively low number and the cannabinoids can kind of ride in that wave and more can get through the blood-brain barrier into the brain to cause an effect. (Interesting) And so that was like some science right there, but that is, we can think that maybe that's part of the reason why people are experiencing these like really like psychoactive, stony, well-rounded experiences with the lower THC numbers and the higher terpene numbers as compared to just the higher THC numbers and the lower terpene numbers. They're kind of not getting what they're necessarily looking for.
Wayne: Interesting, so it's almost you know common word is bioavailability someone's making the can't take cannabinoids more bioavailable to enter through using terpenes and Entourage Effect with them, (Exactly, exactly) so it might be a better bang for your buck, literally can be more effective to go for higher terpenes? (Mm-hmm) Can there be a flower that tests around like 32% THC and have like high terpene profile or is there a trade-off when you get into that upper, you know, 20s 30% THC?
Emma: Yeah, there's typically a trade-off, because it is a percentage of a whole, right? So anytime you increase one area’s percentage you have to sacrifice percentage somewhere else. Theoretically you could, I haven't seen that yet the highest total terpene percentage I've seen is 11% just crazy high and I believe the cannabinoid percentage was in like low to mid 20s so still pretty substantial maybe like 23 or 24 or something like that. But I haven't seen like a THC percentage that surpassed 30 and that also delivered that super high total terpene concentration.
Wayne: Okay. So if a consumer goes into a dispensary or a store, all flower is full spectrum then? (Yes) It's got the whole everything that came with the flower is there. What should they ask if they're looking for terpene results, are those normally displayed? How do they ask the budtender to know what that spectrum is for the flower, and kind of make their buying decision on what works for them or start to figure out what works for them for that matter?
Emma: Hmm, definitely ask for terpene results if you don't see them displayed, some shops will display them, some shops have even started displaying the total terpene concentration with the three or four most dominant terpenes, which is awesome. Other shops are not quite there yet, and they unfortunately may not have terpene results on hand - so terpene testing is not required and so you may walk into a shop and ask for terpene results and they may not have any, but you could still definitely request to see the lab results because it should have at least the potency results, and so you may be able to look for the minor cannabinoids in there. And if your shop, if your local neighborhood shop doesn't have terpene results, ask them why. Really, it starts with the consumer kind of demanding what they want, it is a consumer driven market and so if you go into a shop and ask for terpenes, they don't have it, ask them why and maybe request that the next time, you’d love to see a strain on the shelf that did come with terpene results.
Wayne: Yeah, and how does a consumer tell; so there's the flower that's full spectrum, what about other products and, you know, extracts, concentrates, edibles - how does a consumer know if that product is full spectrum when they go to purchase?
Emma: So definitely ask your budtender, also look at the packaging. If it is a company who is taking the time to really create that full spectrum product, extract, whatever it may be, they usually put it on the packaging, they'll usually say full spectrum or whole plant - that's another good kind of name to look for. And again, you could ask for terpene results for these extracts or oils. Some companies will go that extra mile and get the terpene results for them, so you can really see, okay this is how much terpenes kind of made it through the extraction process, or just ask simply about the extraction process that the company does employ. If you can't get any information about if it is full-spectrum, if you can't get terpene results, ask your budtender, okay well how do they extract this, if it's a typical BHO extraction, probably not going to be full-spectrum. If you see something that says live resin, then that there is a good chance that you will get more terpenes in that extractor concentrate. If it is a CO2 process and the budtender says “Well yes they definitely do it low and slow, it's a low temp extraction”, probably get more end compounds in that as well.
Wayne: Okay, so there's certain processing techniques and hopefully the budtender’s familiar with that lend themselves more to full-spectrum and certain techniques not so much, but ideally the product end product could have just been terpene tested and potency tested and there's no confusion, you can see exactly what it is.
Emma: Exactly, and that's really why we need that data. Even with flower you could smell it and guess what terpenes are in there but really the only way to know is with that lab data.
Wayne: Yeah. I'd like to move the conversation to, you know, we've been talking about effects a lot in different ailments and there's these different, you know, profiles of cannabinoids and terpenes and flavonoids and to me, it's always coming back to an experience that you're trying to create for yourself. So if you're in pain, the experience would be no pain. If you're bored, the experience this is a terrible movie, I'm gonna enjoy this movie, you know, maybe a little bit high. (Laughter) So the staying on the effects and that theme, I think that's really important to have a conversation around different strains and strain names, and I think that's what a lot of consumers hear right now and there's still a lot of the, you know, Sativa strains and Indica strains and a consumers buying based off those because they're looking for a certain effect, and as you know we're coming out of the black market that seems to be the information we have and that's what we use to buy. Can you kind of break down those different strains, Sativa, Indica and maybe even the names and let consumers know maybe what they should be looking for or what they should be weighting their decisions on because of the strain so they are a little more informed about what those actually mean?
Emma: Definitely, yeah. One of my favorite topics, debunking this Indica/Sativa myth, because it is a problem when people are using these names to really find predictability and consistency in their effects and then they don't get it, that is inexcusable in my opinion because we do have something else to look for, which is the cannabinoids and the terpenes. And so for those who are unfamiliar, Indica and Sativa, they are terms that when they were originally created, they were defined by the way that the plant grew. And so they only talk about plant morphology - Indica growing really short and bushy, having broader leaves, having denser flowers. Sativa growing really tall and skinny, having loose flowers, skinny leaves. And then there's also this hybrid classification when the Sativa and Indica have been crossed, and so you have a plant with that mixed morphology - maybe it's medium height, maybe it has broad leaves but loose flowers, whatever it may be. At no point when these terms were created, and they were created in the 1700s by fathers of modern taxonomy, at no point did these philosophers, did these kind of new scientists, smoke or consume this Sativa or Indica and make note of like, “Whoa I'm feeling really energized off this Sativa” or “Oh man, I'm totally “in da couch” from this Indica”. There's no account of that, and so to be in this place now where the industry has kind of adopted these terms to correlate to consistent experience is nonsensical. It doesn't make sense. They are two completely different definitions -plant morphology, the way that a plant grows, does not determine the way it's going to make you feel. And even at one point, if at one point in history, these plants did correlate to consistent experience, they don't anymore and that is because everything on the market currently is a genetic hybrid - everything has been crossed so many times that we are now left with this really incredibly diverse gene pool within cannabis, which is awesome, it makes for really strong plants. And that is, that's because we have, are now coming out of this century long prohibition where all the breeding that was done, I mean there was no scientific legitimacy with it. It was like, you get a seed from a guy, you don't ask anything about it, you go plant it. You got a-if you're lucky enough to get a plant from somebody, again, you're not keeping logs of who you're getting this from, or even of the names or the type of plant, because everything's kind of underground. And so, there's a lot of confusion now with strain names in that there are many strain names that actually don't correlate to the genetics that was of the original strain name. And that's because, I mean again there's no legitimacy or accountability in that. I mean growers could rename a strain if they wanted, they could rename a strain something that they thought was funny, they could they could even like look at a strain and be like, “You know what, I'm gonna rename it Durbin Poison or Super Silver Haze because it's really hot on the market right now and I just want to sell more of it” and it's created this problem in cannabis where, yes, we have this really diverse amazing gene pool, leads to really strong plants with diverse chemotypes, diverse cannabinoids terpenes, but there's this extreme lack of predictability and consistency in the medicine. There's no stable genetic lines, meaning you can't like go into, of course you can't go into a store but if you could let's say theoretically, and buy like a pack of like Girl Scout cookie seeds in a stable genetic line, each of those seeds will exactly the same thing. It's like if you go into a store and buy heirloom tomato seeds you're going to get exactly the same thing out of every single see – that, we are nowhere near that with cannabis yet because of this incredible genetic diversity and also this like strain name game. And when we talk about consumer experience and consumers being able to find that predictability and consistency in an experience - of course they're going to look to strain names because it's what they know, it's what is displayed, it's what's talked about most often, but unfortunately the Cherry Kush that you got from one dispensary, it could be very different than the Cherry Kush that you got from, that you could go get from the dispensary down the street. And so, instead of looking to strain names, which are great marketing tools don't get me wrong, but they don't describe experience at all. And instead of looking to Indica/Sativa as well, we should be looking to the actual compounds that we are consuming, cannabinoids, terpenes, because those are the compounds that we are actually inhaling, ingesting, that are binding to our receptors, that are causing an experience. And so they are the ones that will allow us to be able to deliver, at least close to predictable or consistent experiences for people.
Wayne: Okay, so strain names and the Sativa/Indica - really no correlation to effects. And is it also true if two growers started with Blue Dream, and let's say it genetically was exactly the same seed came from the same source, if one of those was grown in two different ways, maybe one indoor one outdoor, those would also produce different profiles inside the plant as well is that (Definitely) true too? So even the same strain name (Definitely) doesn't mean that it is the same genetics, doesn't mean (Exactly!) it will be consistent.
Emma: And I mean, I think of it in terms of like humans, right? If you had two identical twins, separated at birth, and one was grown up in a certain environment where they were fed only like health food and they were made to exercise every day, and the other one only had junk food and never exercised, they would lead two very different lives, it would become two very different people, no matter the fact that they had identical genetics - same kind of idea with cannabis.
Wayne: Yeah, so it really comes back to, you know, strain name, no consistency there, and to solve that, it's really a cannabinoid potency test and a terpene test on the flower and maybe one day flavonoids as well.
Emma: Yeah, yeah, and even something else, you know, there's a lot yet to uncover about the cannabis matrix, but we know enough right now to move beyond this Sativa/Indica false dichotomy, and move into a more scientific, legitimate way of looking at this plant.
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