Cannabis News & Articles

6 Best Terpenes for Pain and Inflammation Relief

It can be difficult to keep up with all things cannabis—cannabinoids, terpenes, strains, etc.—unless you’re immersed in it daily. The first time I visited a Denver dispensary, I asked the budtender about terpenes. The budtender didn’t have much information for me besides explaining that concentrates with higher terpene content were more expensive. While this is absolutely true, I was sure there was more to the story than just the price difference.

This guide will help you better understand terpene profiles so that you can make more informed decisions when purchasing products from the dispensary. Specifically, we’ll explore how certain terpenes can assist with pain management, which is one of the top reasons medical patients turn to cannabis.

Does CBD Work for Dogs?

Success stories abound of dogs overcoming anxiety, slowing seizures, and even beating cancer due to cannabidiol (CBD), one of more than 100 cannabinoids found in cannabis plants. But how can one substance help so many unrelated problems? Or can it?

Cannabinoids are substances including CBD and THC that mimic the endocannabinoid chemicals naturally produced in all vertebrates. Receptors for endocannabinoids are found throughout the body. The body’s endocannabinoids act as master regulators that signal other systems when to speed up or slow down, working to stabilize the body and return it to homeostasis. Cannabinoids from the cannabis plant affect these same receptors, each in slightly different ways. For example, THC causes a high, while CBD does not.

10 CBD Facts Everyone Should Know

Cannabidiol (CBD), the second-most prominent-cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant, has seen a meteoric rise in the wellness market for offering a wide variety of purported health benefits without causing intoxication or side effects. According to a 2019 survey from Gallup, 1 in 7 Americans, or 14%, use some form of CBD, mostly for medicinal purposes. As CBD's presence continues to grow, consumers and patients are becoming more curious about the ins and outs of this therapeutic cannabis derivative. Despite the growing popularity of CBD products, there is still a fair amount of misinformation surrounding this non-intoxicating cannabis compound, prompting a need for more educational resources and guidelines for the average consumer. What is CBD? How does it work? Is it legal? What should consumers look for in CBD oil and other CBD products? These are all important questions that a canna-curious consumer or medical patient may have. To help set you on a path toward an informed choice, here are 10 essential CBD facts that every potential and current CBD consumer should know. 

Full Spectrum vs. Broad Spectrum CBD: What is the difference?

CBD is one of many compounds in the cannabis plant. Other than THC, it is the plant’s most abundant compound. The main difference between full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD is the compounds they contain.

If a CBD product contains several naturally occurring cannabis plant extracts, such as terpenes and other cannabinoids — including up to 0.3% THC — it is full-spectrum CBD. Broad-spectrum CBD also contains several cannabis plant compounds, but it is typically entirely free of THC. That said, there may sometimes be trace amounts of THC in broad-spectrum CBD products.

Guide to Cannabinoids: The Differences between CBD, CBG, CBN, and THC

Anyone browsing through CBD products lately has likely come upon some new letter configurations—notably, CBN and CBG. These aren't misprints on the labels, but rather other cannabinoids introduced to the market in the last couple of years in the wake of CBD's massive explosion in popularity. For the uninitiated, CDB is cannabidiol, CBN is cannabinol, and CBG is cannabigerol.

Cannabinoids are simply the compounds found in cannabis. There is a huge range of estimates as to how many cannabinoids are in cannabis, since most exist at such low levels that scientists have historically had difficulty detecting them. Most estimates put the number of cannabinoids at somewhere over hundred, including some that state there are more than 140. With most still unknown, the main focus over the years has been on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and CBD.

Why You Need to Eat Fat With Your Edibles

Cannabis cooks know that consuming fat with cannabis, like butter and coconut oil, is essential for giving edibles their potency. That’s because cannabinoids like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are fat-soluble. This means that you need to eat marijuana edibles with fats to make the cannabinoids available to the body.

But recent research reveals that the connection between fats and cannabis is more complex than that, with important implications for making the most of marijuana’s many medicinal properties.

Chemicals that people consume such as vitamins, supplements and medications are either water soluble or fat soluble. This means that they can dissolve and become bioavailable either by water or fat. Water-soluble substances such as vitamin C and B-complex vitamins dissolve easily in water, so that excess amounts of these chemicals are washed out through the kidneys.

But fat-soluble substances like vitamins A and K are lipophiles, or fat lovers. This means that they depend on fats in order to become available to the body. Instead of being flushed out through the kidneys, these substances accumulate over time in the body’s fatty tissues. This is why it can be easy to reach potentially toxic levels of these kinds of chemicals if a person consumes too much of them.

Cannabis as a Treatment For Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a growing widespread health concern across the United States. According to the CDC, chronic pain affects approximately 1 in every 5 Americans, with an estimated cost of $560 billion for medical care and disability. Chronic pain is a multifaceted condition that induces physical, mental, and emotional stress on the body. Therefore, treatment of chronic pain also requires a multifaceted approach, including pharmacological, non-pharmacological, and interventional measures. In light of the recent opioid epidemic, medicinal cannabis has gained traction as a possible treatment for chronic pain. As more states legalize the use of medical marijuana, healthcare professionals must understand the mechanism of action, indications, contraindications, role, and controversy of medicinal marijuana in treating chronic pain.

CBD Dosage: How Much Should You Take?

Cannabidiol (CBD) is growing increasingly popular, thanks to its many purported health benefits and non-intoxicating properties (most CBD products contain less than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC). In fact, 60% of U.S. adults have tried CBD at some point and believe it has medicinal benefits, according to a recent Forbes Health survey of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted by OnePoll. As research evolves and sheds light on CBD’s efficacy, especially for pain relief, more and more people are adding it to their daily wellness regimens.