Whole-plant cannabis use may be better than a single compound
In the case of cannabis, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. While cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are known to each provide a number of health benefits when used separately, using them together could produce even better results.
Project CBD has created a list of common cannabis misconceptions, one of which is that “CBD is medical, THC is recreational.” This is a fallacy, as even small doses of THC combined with CBD have the ability to improve the effectiveness of cannabis as a form of medicine.
The issue stems from the long-running campaign against marijuana. THC has routinely been on the front lines of the anti-marijuana argument as the “bad” compound in marijuana, resulting in a stigma that incorrectly identifies it as nothing more than “what gets people high.”
As Project CBD points out, “Project CBD receives many inquiries from around the world and oftentimes people say they are seeking ‘CBD, the medical part’ of the plant, ‘not THC, the recreational part’ that gets you high. Actually, THC … has awesome therapeutic properties… [but] diehard marijuana prohibitionists are exploiting the good news about CBD to further stigmatize high-THC cannabis, casting tetrahydrocannabinol as the bad cannabinoid, whereas CBD is framed as the good cannabinoid. Why? Because CBD doesn’t make you feel high like THC does. Project CBD categorically rejects this moralistic, reefer madness dichotomy in favor of whole plant cannabis therapeutics.
A study conducted by the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco revealed that using both CBD and THC creates more potent results in combatting tumors related to breast and brain cancer. Another study showed that individuals that suffer from intractable cancer-related pain were able to tolerate medicines better if they contained both THC and CBD, as opposed to those medicines that only contained THC. Yet another showed that CBD “inhibits THC-elicited paranoid symptoms and hippocampal-dependent memory impairment.”
There is still much to learn about cannabis, CBD, THC and every related compound. However, what should not have to be learned is what science has already proven – cannabis, and its compounds, are much better for you than many have led the world to believe for the past 100 years.
