What is Cannabis?

wildthailand_1Well Cannabis is a fun little plant that unfortunately gets a pretty bad name from those who don’t understand it. What they are really cross at is weed or marijuana, the drug that comes from the plant. These are obviously not the scientific names but you understand what I refer to.

Cannabis is much more than just a drug. Cannabis comes in three strains; cannabis sativa, cannabis indica, and cannabis ruderalis. All of these strains have a different effect on the body and some may be used more for medicine than for recreational purposes.

There are several parts to the cannabis plant which can be utilised and the most well-known use, which is of course is smoking it, is achieved by cultivating the dry flowers. We are then left with the stem and the seeds. These have far more uses than the dried up flowery bits that mankind seems to have clung to.

First of all the stem. The stem produces an extremely strong fibre called hemp. Hemp has hundreds of uses including being made into material, paper, rope, even animal bedding. This part of the plant is typically extracted from cannabis sativa. Hemp contains very little THC and is in no way dangerous and yet everyone chooses to ignore its amazing, eco-friendly nature. Many in fact think that hemp was one of the reasons that cannabis was made illegal. There is evidence to suggest that the lumber mills became rather cross that hemp supplied an environmentally friendly source of paper and threatened to put them out of business. It still being illegal today because of this is laughable but heck humans sure don’t like to admit that they are wrong.

Even when we consider what can come from the dried up flowers that we smoke, cannabis is an amazing plant. It naturally grows CBD which is usually found to be higher in the sativa strains. CBD is a cannabinoid which reacts with receptors in our bodies to do all sorts of amazing things which is why it is used as medicine. Not only does it act as a pain killer, an anti-inflammatory, and an appetite booster but it has been proven to slow the effects of Cancer and AIDS as well as naturally helping to strengthen the bones of osteoporosis patients.

All in all I think we should all be a lot nicer to cannabis, it could be the answer to a lot of the world’s problems.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *