By now you’re well familiar with the role of THC in cannabis, and you can hardly pass a gas station without seeing signs for CBD products. In layman’s terms, CBD delivers many of the potential health benefits of cannabis without the ‘high,’ while THC offers the hallucinogenic effects we associate with marijuana. That’s a big oversimplification, but it’s a starting point.
THC (or THCA, technically Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid) and CBD (CBDA, cannabidiolic acid) are cannabinoids, and they don’t just occur naturally in cannabis. They need to be activated, usually by heat. What you might not know is that there are more cannabinoids … a lot more. In fact one study estimates that there are more than 500 cannabinoids in existence, but the truth is that we’re not quite sure because most occur at very small levels.
Have you heard of CBN, CBG or THCV? Probably not. But you might soon, because these are a few of the lesser-known cannabinoids that researchers are beginning to understand more fully. Without turning this into a chemistry lesson, let’s take a look at why:
CBN (cannabinol) appears to offer pain relief, better sleep and general sedative effects, similar to CBD. Like CBD, it’s non-psychoactive, but when combined with THC appears to offer anti-seizure, anti-inflammatory and even antibiotic qualities..
CBG (cannabigerol), also non-psychoactive, has shown early promise in treating conditions as diverse as glaucoma, Huntingdon’s disease and even cancer. Suffice to say it has the attention of medical researchers.
THCV (tetrahydrocannabivarinic acid) is perhaps even more interesting. Like the other two, it’s non-psychoactive, but appears to be able to moderate the high delivered by THC, producing a state of clear-headed euphoria.
As with everything else related to cannabis, there’s a great deal of research still to be done. But given the vast number of cannabinoids and their unique properties, it’s not hard to look down the road and imagine products that are even more tailored to the individual user.
Brytemap produces a full suite of seed-to-sale software products for growers and dispensaries in the cannabis industry. To learn more, request a demo.
