Hello Friends!
My name is Rachael, I am a cannabis educator located in Portland, Oregon, here to answer your questions about cannabis, CBD and hemp. I am a cannabis enthusiast and advocate, not a medical professional. I always encourage you to reach out to your doctor before trying any of the products that I talk about.
Have you seen hemp and CBD ads and products popping up everywhere around you? Are you wondering how they can be legal? Do you want to dip a toe into the world of hemp and/or CBD but don’t know where to start? I am here to help.
What’s cannabis you ask, we never called it that when I was growing up?
Cannabis is a classification of plants you may have heard called, marijuanna, weed, grass, dope, ganja, reefer, pot, etc. Humans have been consuming cannabis for thousands of years. It’s only been illegal in the United States since 1937, when the Marihuana Tax Act was passed.
One thing to remember is that all hemp is cannabis, but all cannabis is not hemp. Cannabis is the parent category branching off into Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indica and Cannabis Ruderalis(hemp)
Now for the real question, will this get me high?
To this I ask well, what do you have on hand?
If you have a product with CBD or hemp seed oil, the answer to that is no. Studies have shown that CBD has therapeutic effects when consumed or used topically, hemp seed oil on the other hand is best used as a nutritional supplement or moisturizer. It’s excellent in a body lotion, oil or butter, but it won’t offer the therapeutic benefits of CBD.
The answer to that is if you are purchasing cannabis from a dispensary in a legal state and it has THC then, yes it will get you high. Be sure to go over proper dosing with your budtender, this is not the same stuff we had “on the market” back in the day. I also have a post here with some common guidelines listed.
THC, CBD, CBN what are these letters and why are they important?
Well those three letter items are called cannabinoids and they are one of the many compounds found in the cannabis plant. THC is the only one that is currently federally illegal. You can purchase cannabis items containing THC in many states that have decided to make cannabis legal for purchase at a cannabis shop most frequently called a dispensary. Some states do require that you have a medical card allowing you to use cannabis to help with a medical issue. Each state has different qualifying conditions and more and more states are making cannabis recreationally legal, which eliminates the need for a medical card and usually will allow anyone with a valid ID over the age of 21 to purchase cannabis. I recommend looking for the regulations in your state or the state in which you plan to purchase cannabis before going into the dispensary. You can find all kinds of great information ahead of time and that will put you in your budtenders good graces. I have links listed here for you to take a look at.